Phillies 10,000th defeat:
At a loss for words

In the Batter’s Box
By Matt Godfrey

There are a few things I wanted to touch on this week because they all deserve a mention.
First is a milestone that the Phillies are going to achieve this season. A milestone that no other team in baseball history has accomplished.
A milestone — I’m sure — that no other team in baseball ever hopes to accomplish.
It’s the Phillies’ 10,000th loss.
Sure, it has felt at times like the Phils have lost that many games in a season. But this feat of mediocrity spans the team’s 125-year history.
When you look at it that way, the team’s losing ways are a lot easier to take, right? Right??
As the Times went to press this week, the Phillies stood at 9,991 losses. Only nine shy of that magical number!
So unless these guys lose just eight of their remaining 87 games, we are going to experience history this year. It’s just not the kind of history we had in mind.
But in typical Philadelphia style, the ever-frustrated fans have figured out a way to celebrate this woeful accomplishment.
They have set up a Web page . . . with a countdown. Fans are invited to visit the site at http://celebrate10000.com to share their own stories about Phillies losses past or present.
I also wanted to talk about the upcoming All-Star Game.
More specifically, whom the Phillies will be sending as their representatives.
We know that each league’s manager selects the pitchers based on performance. So it would seem that Cole Hamels is a lock for the National League team.
We also know that position players are selected by the fans in balloting that has been ongoing for the past few weeks. As of the latest ballot count, Chase Utley was leading all National League second basemen, with more than 930,000 votes.
And rightly so. Utley has done an incredible job during his young career here. He deserves every vote that he receives; he deserves to be the starting second baseman for the National League.
There is one other guy that I think should be in San Francisco for that game.
Aaron Rowand.
The guy has just done it all for the Phillies so far this year. Admittedly his numbers have started to diminish as of late, but his first-half performance still puts him in the running.
He still ranks sixth in runs scored, ninth in on-base percentage, and 12th in batting average among National League outfielders. He also is widely respected for his hard-nosed play and the strong defense he brings to the center-field position.
And his gritty style is just fun to watch.
Finally, the other topic just happens to involve Rowand. Someone asked the other day what I thought . . . and this is purely hypothetical . . . if the Phillies were to trade Aaron Rowand, but only on the condition that the other team had to take Pat Burrell as well?
Personally, I don’t have as negative a view of Burrell as a lot of people in this city do, but I certainly believe he’s making a ton of money that he isn’t consistently earning.
I still think Rowand is exactly the type of guy the Phillies need to keep here. But that trade scenario got me thinking.
Presuming the package would be for pitching, that would leave the Phillies with an outfield consisting of Shane Victorino, Michael Bourn and Greg Dobbs, along with Jayson Werth somewhere in that mix.
Bourn is already among the league leaders in steals while playing only sparsely all season. Dobbs has done a great job so far with the bat in his limited playing time.
That deal may not be such a bad idea, depending on who would be coming to the Phils if they were able to pull it off. ••
Columnist Matt Godfrey can be reached at 215-354-3113 or mgodfrey@phillynews.com