Segovia Sighed ... Bisenius Cried ...

... and Eppa Rixey STILL doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame.
So what if he won 10 games as a Phillie rookie in 1912. Eight of his nine seasons in Philly were too dadgum mediocre to merit enshrinement.
Everybody knows it -- even if Eppa Rixey's grandkids can't/won't admit it.

Anyway, maybe it's a good thing that Eppa Rixey wasn't alive to see Game 2 today ... and witness the manner in which rookie Kyle Kendrick kinda melted down before the Phillies' bullpen imploded.
Yet, unlike Eppa Rixey, Zack Segovia and Joe Bisenius did not roll over in their graves (although nobody's sure if they didn't spend today digging holes in the backyard and practice rolling over in their graves).

Phillie Phan might've forgotten about Segovia and Bisenius. Those two were the rookie Phillie pitchers who performed during the first week of the season for the '07 N.L. East champions -- and then were summarily dispatched to the minors (never to be heard from again).
Possibly never again.

Segovia pitched in one game -- a start against the Martians on that first Sunday of the season ... a game at Dolphins Stadium in which the Phils scored 3 in the top of the first before Zack gave away the lead by allowing 4 in the bottom of the second.
While five runs allowed in five innings cannot be classified as "a bang-up" job, it probably wasn't any worse than many of the starts made by Adam Eaton in '07.
And, it sure didn't merit a demotion.

Bisenius? He made two relief appearances during that first week (2 IP, 2 hits, 2 BB, 3 Ks, a 0.00 ERA) before gettin' his big-league pink slip.

During this, the October of '07 (before the summer of '09 when Segovia is goin' 7-2 for the Brewers while Bisenius is saving his 13th game in 14 chances for the Blue Jays), it wouldn't be a shocker if Zack was on his cell, tellin' Joe, "You would've come in and mowed those guys down" -- before Joe snaps back with, "If you had started Game 2, I wouldn't have been called in until the 7th or 8th, anyway."

The Phillies' Dugout Director of Operations, Charlie Man-Yuu-"L," took a little longer to lose faith in Kendrick than Gillick and BiologyDegreeFromStanford Amaro did in Segovia and Bisenius.
Kyle's excellent 10-4 / 3.38 season went down the tubes when The Yokel waddled out to the mound after somebody named "Seth Smith" hit that cue-shot, bleeder up the third-base line to load the bases.

Kyle2 then replaced Kyle1 and found it necessary to groove one to somebody named Kaz -- and there went the season, kids.
Phillie Phan profusely showered Joe Table with boos after his four-batter, one-hit, two-walk, one-third of an inning -- but maybe it serves Phillie Phan right for believing that Joe Table shoulda been out there instead of Joe Bisenius.

On the other hand, Phillie Phan should avoid using terms such as "shock" to explain Games 1 and 2.
"Shock" is best used to describe what it was like to be 15 years old and havin' your heart racing as Garber retires the first two Dodgers in the 9th before the Davalillo-Mota-Lopes-Russell scenario unfolds and then rips that fast-beating heart right outta your chest.
"Shock" is when Rickey's single lands between Nails and Eisey and plates two runners to make it 14-13 before Devon's liner bisects the gap between Nails and Eisey for a two-run triple which puts the Blue Jays up, 15-14 -- and leaves ya thinkin' that if Dutch's drive down the RF line hadn't curled foul and been a near-miss grand slam before he was hit by the pitch which forced in the run that made the score, 14-9, hell ... even if it HAD been a grand slam to put 'em up, 17-9, in the late-night drizzle, it just woulda meant that the Jays were gonna win, 18-17 ...

Those were the "shockers" when some of us were directing the Special OPs Division for the Phillies' West Coast Bureau (in the Dodgers' back yard) "back in the day."
It's true ... the '70s were a lot more harsh than this "Rock Shock," once you consider that the maroon-pinstriped superteam which oftentimes mauled opponents in The Vet went 0-6 there in the '76/'77/'78 playoffs (particularly tough, given the 60-21 record at home in '77).

And, if it wasn't a Rock-slide takin' place at The Cit, who's to say it wouldn't have been just as bad if the LDS opponent been the Pod Squad, the D-Backs, the D-Rays, whatever ... ?

This is exactly where the 1-2 pitching punch punch of Myers and Garcia could've earned their place in Phillie lore -- instead of leaving it up to Kyle Kendrick (who was only three seasons removed from a combined 5-16 record as a 19-year-old for the Lakewood Blue Claws and the Batavia Muckdogs ... and who was only 4-7 at Reading when he "earned" his '07 promotion) to bail 'em out.

Myers, the guy who ended the regular-season with that insane, final-pitch, knee-buckler of a curveball, pitched a semi-meaningless inning yesterday ... which, though not fault of the Yokel Skipper, is NOT where one of the staff's "leaders" is supposed to be at this time of the season.

Funny thing is, even if the Phils had, hypothetically, clinched the East with a 152-10 record while the Cubs had, theoretically, won the Central with an 80-82 record, The MLB wild-card mixup STILL would've had the Rocks playing the Phils since no wild-card team can, in the first round, meet a team from its own division.
Even Eppa Rixey would admit that such backwards thinking is soooooooo 1912.

Pure logic states the playoffs are supposed to be 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3.
No one's talkin' 'bout abolishing the wild-card, but, it could be streamlined ... and made "less wild."
A simple reconfiguration would have the East as: Phillies, Mets, Braves, Nats, Martians, Pirates, Cubs, Reds while the West would be D-Backs, Rocks, Pods, Dodgers, Giants, Astros, Cards, Brew Crew.
With 12 games against each divisional opponent (84 total), eight vs. the other division (64 total) and 14 vs. a rotating A.L. schedule (14 total), it COULD be a viable format.

Then again, chicks dig the longball ... so longball is what the chicks shall get.

Re-configured or not, the Phils' pitching staff was never going to carry them very far, anyway, so stop beating yourself up, Kyle Kendrick, for serving up homers on consecutive pitches to Troy Toiletwhiskey (into the flower bed!) and Matt Holliday (who cleared the flower bed).
The Phillies were doomed the minute that Eric Young and Pete Gammons completely lost their marbles by picking the Phillies for the World Series.

Luckily for some of us, the FedEx guy arrived in the nick of time and delivered the new Steelers sweatshirt before the game ... so nobody really cared when the Phillies' Hawaiian-style shirt (purchased at The Cit during the first week of that stadium's history) was ditched and replaced in the top of the 9th by the Black N' Gold.
It's called "dressing for success."

Maybe for Game 3, Phillie Phan who lives in/near Philly can slip on his/her yellow-n'-powder-blue jersey which the Eagles were wearing when they completely destroyed the Lions nearly two weeks ago.
'Cuz, if the Phillies get swept (which many of us forecast that they will), it's gonna make for one surly-ass crowd showin' up at The Linc on Sunday for that Eagles game.
Which doesn't mean squat for those of us wearing the Black N' Gold as the Curtain hosts Seattle in the re-enactment of SB XL.

Sucks to be you, Eagles fans who burned your SB XXXIX sweatshirts ...