The Phillies are making it hard on themselves

The Phillies had a successful home stand for the first two series against the Washington Nationals and Kansas City Royals. Then they lost the last two games against the Minnesota Twins to end their positive momentum. The main reason they lost those games was their offense went completely quiet. They were starting to give themselves a good cushion in terms of the current standings to make the playoffs. Because of the Phillies’ lackluster performance, the San Francisco Giants are now pretty close to the first wild card position. The Phillies also lost the first game against the Toronto Blue Jays because their offense continues to stay almost silent. 

The Eagles played their second preseason game this week against the Cleveland Browns. The only significant position battle on the offense is going to be the running back position between four players – Rashaad Penny (who they acquired from the Seattle Seahawks), D’Andre Swift (who started for the Detroit Lions for two years) and Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell (who were both on the Eagles team last year). I also heard some bad news about the defense: Haason Reddick has to have surgery on his thumb and will be out until opening day. Hopefully this is realistic timeline for him.

The Women’s World Cup Soccer Final is between England and Spain. Whoever wins it will claim their first World Cup. I hope it will be a great game and determined before penalty kicks are needed since that's a very tough way to lose. Both semifinal games were quite close. Australia almost pulled off another upset to make it to the finals, but England pulled it out in the end. 

Australia gets to play Sweden in the third-place game Saturday at 6 a.m., and the final is Sunday at 6 a.m. as well.

I was correct. The U.S. is making coaching changes. I would have thought this would happen after the World Cup is over as a courtesy to the other teams, but I guess they wanted to get it over and done with.