First series and same old stuff. But, it's an improvement.

Even though they lost the series, I'll take it as an improvement over last year.  The Phillies started the last two seasons being swept by their opening opponents.

Game 1:

Since I live in Atlanta, I don't get to watch the games on a regular basis.  I just get to see how things play out from the stats or what I see through MLB's game cast.  So, I miss a lot of nuances of a pitchers performance.  All I see is Myers cruising through 4 innings and then the Nationals hit him up for a bunch of runs.  I don't see that he didn't have his best stuff like he said.  Though I know what he is talking about.  Last year, I knew he was in trouble in the bullpen when he couldn't get his curve ball over for a strike.  If that happened and it was a save situation, then I just knew to kiss the game goodbye.  This game just eventually displayed the Frustrating Phillies though they did appear for a time as the Fighting Phillies.  They tied things up late in the game only to lose the lead in the 9th from a imploding performance from Tom Gordon.  It's early but still this game didn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

Game 2:

The only pitcher on the staff that gives me confidence that he will win the game (a la Carlton) is Cole Hamels.  The only time this doesn't happen is if he just has a rare bad outing or the Phillies bats just go into hibernation.  The latter happened this case.  They just managed to get 1 hit off of Tim Redding.  I looked him up and he's a career 4.85 ERA pitcher.  Not a pitching stud by any means but he was able to stifle the Phillies bats.   When Bret Myers was interviewed, he mentioned that you could call him a lier if the Phillies started 4-11 again this year.  After this loss, I was starting to envision the phillies going 2-13 or worse 0-15 in April.

Game 3: 

Yikes.  This game started awful.  Moyer spotted the Nationals 5 runs in the 1st.  This game felt like the 1st.  The Phils would either be the Fightin' or Frustratin' Phils depending on what inning it was.  They did a great job getting the lead back in the 6th by scoreing 6 runs only to let the Nats tie things back up again in the 8th.  The worse thing about that is that Romero gave up the run.  He's supposed to be the anchor in the bullpen.  The other irony is that Tom Gordon held the Nats in the 9th instead of giving the game away.  On that note, he didn't make it look easy.  I think I overdosed on Tums in the 9th.  They Phillies won it on a gutsy/risky play by Jimmy Rollins taking 3rd from 1st on a sacrifice bunt.  I got to give kudos on free swinging Jason Werth to wait on a the pitcher to throw a strike which never came.  4 balls, a walk and an RBI later, the Phillies avoided being swept for a 3rd year in a row.

Like I said, it's an improvement and I'm sticking to it.

On a side note, I would like to take some credit for the win because I had realized that I had not started my daily ritual of drinking from my Phillies coffee mug.  So yes, you can blame me for the first two losses as well.  Won't happen again.