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Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins told reporters that he is retiring today, having spent most of last night reading Nate Silver's political blog FiveThirtyEight.

"My wife was telling me about this stats guy who nailed the whole election," said Rollins. "So I check out his site, and this dude got, like, every single electoral vote right."

Rollins proceeded to read as many of Silver's posts as he could, until hitting what he described as a "bullshit New York Times paywall". So the 2007 NL MVP went ahead and Googled "Nate Silver stats genius", wondering how the pollster expertly predicted Obama's razor-thin win in Florida, but instead discovered Silver's PECOTA projection system for baseball players' career trajectories.

"Apparently [Silver's] numbers say I'm gonna turn into Alan Trammell, but with less range. Which seems crazy, but that guy got 31 out of 33 Senate races right, so…yeah, I'm gonna call that ESPN guy back about the color commentator job."

The Philadelphia Phillies are facing the harsh reality that their season may be lost in light of the news that starting pitcher Roy Halladay is likely out for six to eight weeks due to shoulder pain.

Halladay, the second-highest paid Phillies starter behind Cliff Lee, now forces Philadelphia to move forward with a rotation consisting of nothing more than Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Vance Worley, Joe Blanton and Kyle Kendrick.

"When you invest $70 million in a rotation, but end up only being able to pitch a $50 million rotation for a month or so, that really hurts," said Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro. "And Cliff Lee and Hamels make up $36.5 million of that. So we now only have one Cy Young winner in our rotation and, for the first time in years, less than half of our rotation has made an All-Star Game. Less than half! It's pretty bleak."

Philadelphia Phillies starter Cole Hamels has admitted that he hit Nationals rookie Bryce Harper on purpose in the first inning Sunday night, and today apologized for the act.

"I don't know what to say. I messed up," said Hamels. "I hit him in the small of his back, so I missed my target by about three feet, as I wanted to hit hit square in his stupid goddam face. My lack of control on that pitch is not acceptable. I expect better from myself, and I will forever regret not plunking him square in his douche head."

Hamels says he thinks he knows what happened on the pitch.

"I got so excited about the opportunity to smash his face, maybe to the point of knocking his helmet off and tearing a bald patch in his faux-hawk, blood pouring down his sideburns and into his mouth, that I overthrew," said Hamels. "I won't make that mistake again."

Hamels also stressed that trying to hit Harper in the face wasn't anything personal.

"I don't know him at all," said the pitcher, "although anyone who has met him says he's unbearable. I wanted to hit him in in the face based on appearances alone, nothing else."