The Phillies extended their playoff life Thursday night, beating the Giants 4-2 in San Francisco to bring the series back to Philadelphia. A few notes on the game:
- Full-fledged panic has been delayed at least one more day, because losing to a team in 5 games in which the leading offensive lights are Cody Ross and Aubrey Huff might've deleted all the good will the Phils have engendered in the last four years.
- Also over now- the stupid debate about whether or not Roy Halladay should've started Game 4 on short rest. If he had, the series would probably still be 3-2.
- The Phils' bats woke up a bit, with Raul Ibanez and Chase Utley actually getting hits. And with Oswalt and Hamels starting Games 6 and 7, with Lincecum done for the series, I expect the Phillies to win the pennant again.
- Some team is going to throw a ton of money at Cody Ross in the offseason, and he's going to make them look like idiots when he reverts to his usual mediocre self. I'm sure it'll be the Mets.
- Pete Rose was on Mike Missannelli's show Thursday afternoon. I just know Mike was dying to ask him whether he had money on the game.
- The singer of "God Bless America" was a performer from the long-running San Francisco stage show "Beach Blanket Babylon, and the woman's San Francisco-shaped hat was a subject of much derision for the Phillies bloggers on Twitter. I know the show because the guy who wrote it happens to have been named Steve Silver- here's a picture I took, from five years ago, of a bust of him.