LYNX GETTIN' GEARY, BUT...

It's reasonable to wonder what the Phillies organization can do about left-hander Eude Brito, whose ERA rose to 9.19 after he was jolted by the fireworks the Yankees smuggled across the border for today's 12-1 thumping (boxscore, play-by-play) on Canada Day. (Today's game, with the ScranYanks pounding out 19 hits, makes up for the 17-4 donkey the Lynx pinned on them back in April, when this season was a lot younger.)

Brito's woes are the tip of the iceberg for the pitching with the Phillies. He pitched was as good for Scranton last season (3.17 ERA, 1.16 WHIP in 147 2/3 innings) as he pitched for them today while wearing an Ottawa uniform. With Zack Segovia in Reading, who else is there in the organization, though? The Phillies (who did manage to salvage a game vs. the Mets today) have had pitchers go down all over the place, (see Stephen A. Smith's column the Inky today), so there's a trickle-down for the Lynx.

As Phillies blog The Good Phight points out, Anderson Garcia, who earned a well-deserved callup today, would be "the seventh Phillies pitcher to make his major-league debut in 2007." The sixth, left-hander J.A. Happ, is headed back to the Lynx after starting for the Phillies yesterday vs. the Mets

(See, Jays fans? We're not that bad -- our team has only used five guys who had never pitched in the majors before this year. Season ain't over yet, though.)

Garcia is going up since Geoff Geary's recent woes in Philadelphia have led to him joining the Lynx for a spell. The righty middle reliever has been getting jocked on a semi-regular basis this season, with an ERA in the mid-5s and seven home runs allowed in 39 innings. (That's one more than he gave up all last season when he logged 91 1/3 innings, one of the heaviest workloads for any reliever in the National League.)

Anyway, this is just a longwinded way of asking people to understand why the Lynx (33-46) are going through. They're losing games, but they're in a tight spot. Today, for instance, centre3-fielder Chris Roberson was scratched for the second game in a row since coming out early in Friday's game. Joe Thurston, who's a good second baseman, had to take a turn in the field and bam, the ScranYanks ended up hitting three triples in the game — all to centre.

It might not get easier today with Heath Totten (1-4, 5.90, 1.66 WHIP) facing hot prospect Matt DeSalvo (5-1, 1.69, 1.17 WHIP) in an all-righty matchup at 1:05..