Phillies half game back !

by Joseph Birmingham

Monday September 6, 2010 

Amidst all the Labor Day Sales, trips to the beach, ramping up of the NFL and other late summer activities, the Phillies are in the midst of an unrelenting grind of playing a game nearly every day, rain or shine, home or away, and having to at least win every time the Braves do. 

And in the past 2 weeks, despite missing out on several opportunities as the Braves mosey into September, the Phillies HAVE inched closer.  Before tonight’s games, the margin for the NL East stood at 1 game.  Now, after the Phillies split a pair with the Marlins and the Braves loss to the Pirates,  it is half a game.

The Phillies lineup seemed perfectly in sync for the stretch run in the game tonight putting forth a solid consistant effort to back up Roy Oswalt, perhaps 2010’s winner of the “pitcher with the worst run support in the bigs” award.

By the sixth inning, Victorino, Polanco, Utley and Ibanez had all collected at least 2 hits, driven in a run, and scored a run.   The Phillies lead after five innings was 7-4 and they won by that score after falling 7-1 to the Fish in the day game.  Oswalt is now 5-1 since being traded in a Cliff Lee dejavue kind of way, and the team is 7-1 in games that he started.

In the NL, they now trail only the Braves, by virtue of an extra loss, and the Reds, by virtue of two additional losses.  With the Padres unraveling, the Braves faltering, and the Reds with no one pushing them in the Central, the Phillies are now tied for most wins in the National League and looking good.  Charlie Manuel has stated this team needs to be judged by how it finishes, and maybe he knew what he was talking about.  The Phillies always seem to play somewhat to the level of their competition, and recently, have stepped it up in big games, and season changing games so the stretch is looking pretty interesting indeed.

And with all the Eagles fervor, maybe the Phillies will win some football fans over when they threepeat the NL East and return to the World series for the third time in as many years.

After all, when was the last time the Eagles won three NFC East titles in a row and went to three Superbowls ? 

Oh, right !

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