It’s been one of those weeks. Got back home from Vegas on the red-eye Monday morning, worked all week. Man, am I tired.

But, in addition going back to work after that red-eye, one of the main reasons I’m so tired and behind on my blogging was also the best thing about this week. I got to see the Phillies live, and I didn’t have to go very far to do it.

From my office, to the subway, to the ballpark – about 30 minutes door to gate. And the excitement in the city is palpable. As I exited the Metro on the way to Wednesday afternoon’s game, a total stranger beamed at me with delight about what a great day it was, what a great game it would be, and how he still needed to buy his ticket. Again – I didn’t know this guy.

So the Phillies took two of three from the overachieving Washington Nationals, and could have won all three if they had managed to score just three of the 10 men they left on base Tuesday night.

I’ve been so exhausted this week, I had no idea where the Phillies were in the standings until about two seconds ago when I looked it up. Then again, I don’t think I needed to look it up to sense a last place, 10-13 record. After watching them struggle to put away a team as bad as the Nationals, it’s time for us to put away any delusions of grandeur we might have.

This is no better than a .500 team.

Just a quick post to say I’ll be in Las Vegas this weekend, where I will not be placing any bets on the Phillies. So PhogLights will be on hiatus for the next few days, but I’ll be back on Monday and I’ll be watching the Phillies live from RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.

As for the Vegas trip, you know what the ads say: what happens in Vegas…

It would be easy to blame Vicente Padilla for the massacre at CBP this evening. After all, he looked every bit like the old Padilla, taking every hitter to a 3-2 count, getting easily frustrated and throwing pitches right down the middle. But Gavin Floyd was no better in his bullpen debut. Padilla and Floyd surrendered eight earned runs each on seven home runs, ruining the ‘eight’ symmetry.

Some fans have unofficially taken to calling Citizen’s Bank Park “The Vault.” A more apt name would be “The Safe-Deposit Box.”

I feel a running gag coming on.

Only the Phillies could manage to go about things both the right and wrong way so consistently. So far this season they could be renamed the Philadelphia Paradox.

They lost their opening series to the ‘first place is only an illusion’ Washington Nationals, and then went on to win two series against the defending National League champion Cardinals and division dominating Braves. To paraphrase Casey Stengel, the goal should be to take two-of-three from the good teams and beat the snot out of the bad ones. Go figure.

Then we have Charlie Manuel’s platoons, which actually seem to be working despite the way most of us seem to think it should be done (especially second base). Bell and Polanco have both struggled at times, but they both came through in the clutch last night (one with the glove, the other with the bat), while Utley did both the day before. What’s a manager to do? The same thing he’s been doing, I guess.

And of course there’s the pitching. The starters, who had the biggest pre-season question marks hanging over their heads, have a combined ERA of 3.31. Myers in particular seems to have closed the gap between his 10-cent head and million-dollar arm very rapidly. Meanwhile, the bullpen, which was touted as the best in the league before the season started, has been sucking more wind than Kenny G.

I suppose all this yin and yang explains why the Phillies are 6-6. Then again, so is the rest of the division. Sure beats last year’s 1-6 start.

Sin City (2005)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller
Starring Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Rutger Hauer, Jaime King, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, Bruce Willis, Elijah Wood

Synopsis
An honest cop tries to bring a child rapist with powerful connections to justice; a gargantuan street-fighter is framed for murder and sets out to avenge the victim; a convicted murderer joins forces with the city’s prostitutes to defend their turf against the mob and corrupt police department. These stories and dozens of characters weave their way through the violent streets and dark underbelly of Basin City.

Review
Robert Rodriguez literally brings Frank Miller’s Sin City to life. Miller’s graphic novels already provided the storyboards and the dialogue – all Rodriguez had to do was provide the actors and make the images move. The result is a very successful experiment in filmmaking shot entirely on a soundstage at Rodriguez’s studio in Austin, Texas. The melding of black and white film, color imagery, and CGI effects creates a whole new chapter to the long, storied history of film noir and reaffirms Rodriguez as the radical genius he is. The only drawback to Sin City – and it’s a significant one – is the screenplay, or lack thereof. The stilted comic book dialogue at times betrays the film’s efforts to make these surreal, ultra-violent characters human and other times is simply undeliverable by real-life actors. Bringing in someone to punch it up could have provided an extra layer of depth, similar to the way William Faulkner’s dialogue in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946) not only drives the action, but almost becomes a character of its own.

Grade: B+