Ah well, it's just a game

Mets 3, Phillies 2.

Season nearly over now.

It's like living in a medieval torture chamber.

Keepin' the faith

I couldn't sleep last night. I tossed and turned. I sat up awake at 1:00 am, trying not to think about that disastrous collapse. Why, why, why? "Ryan!" I demanded of Mr. Madson as he dueled endlessly with Doug Mientkewiczkicszich...ish...icz. "Get me out of this inning! I don't want to be here anymore!"

But what did I tell you yesterday? I believe. I believe. Do you?

I'm sick of this. Sick of the losing. I've been watching this nonsense for 12 years. I'm sick of the Mets, and the Braves, and the Marlins, and the Astros and Cardinals and Yankees and Red Sox. Sick! I can't stand it anymore. I've put up with a lot of crap and now I'm cashing in. I want the Wild Card. I want the Wild Card and I want it NOW. I'm going to the game tonight and if they don't win I will stab somebody. All right, that's kind of ridiculous, I should stop setting myself up for heartbreak and just calm down. Maybe I'll eat one of those delicious Philadelphia Cheese Steak Sandwiches to soothe my jangled nerves.

Hardcore Phillies Bloggery

Just checking in. 9:54 pm. 2 hour, 35 minute rain delay - bottom of first, Phils up 1-0. Jimmy extends hitting streak to 31 with leadoff homerun. Chase Utley just hit a double. The final week of the season is here and the Phils are alive.

Great stuff. This is a different team. I sort of thought that a month ago but they were too inconsistent to be sure. But now... you can see it. They have energy, they have heart, they're having fun, they're arguing with umps, hustling, all that good stuff. The dark days are over.

This is fun. This is a hell of a lot of goddamn fun. Back to the game now. Go Phils, Go Cardinals, Go Cubs.

YES WE CAN.

Yes, oh yes, I believe

Brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you that the David Bell Revival Show has the power to heal. The 2005 Phillies will make a believer out of even the most cynical skeptic. David Bell has the power, my friends. David Bell has the power to make this Diarist's comments look asinine. David Bell has the power to erase five months of GIDP's and E's. David Bell has the power to make season-saving plays at third. David Bell has the power to hit game winning home runs. David Bell has the power: the power to make me tip over an armchair in celebration, to run crazily through a schoolyard at 11 pm. Brother Dave is here to make you believe.

I once was lost but now I'm found. I was lost, because I thought the Phils were cooked. I thought 2005 was just 2004, only moreso. That was before the Phils took 5 of 7 from the Braves. That was before the Phils pounced on a collapsing Marlins. That was before my boys on the Northside held on to beat the Astros. That was a long time ago... and it's hazy now. My dark days. Because now... NOW I believe.

And they can save you too.

It's September 24 and I can't wait to watch the Phils tonight. How refreshing. How wonderfully new and strange. Go Phils, Go Cubs, Go Marlins. Let's do this thing.

I'll never please the city fathers who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and ask Whatever is to be done with this Ryan Howard?

These ain't the Phils of old. These are the 2005 Phillies. They're here to kick ass and take names. First they make me (who said they wouldn't fold or suck) look like an idiot and get handcuffed by Josh Beckett (vile punk) and Jorge Sosa (what? who?) . Charlie takes out Lidle on Tuesday for no discernable reason, puts in Cormier (who's just flat out finished, let's be honest) who walks in a run and acts stupid. They lose. Jimmy's streak goes on, thanks to the miraculous work of Michael Tucker. Bad game though. Charlie's an idiot - or is he? The team loves him. They bounce back and win two in a row: Ryan's slam, then Jon "No Run Support" Lieber with the shutout this afternoon. The Astros refuse to lose, or maybe the Pirates are refusing to help. Hanging in there, though. The 2005 Phillies don't go away. Not like teams of yore. Yore is old news. Yore is gone. Screw the teams of yore.

Seriously, what are we going to do with Ryan Howard when Thome gets back? Don't get me wrong, this is not a slam against Thome. I adore the man. If Ryan mysteriously disappeared and we had to "settle" for Thome at first for another three years, I'm cool. But where would we be this year without Ryan? It's like he dropped from the sky to be Thome's younger, faster, more badass replacement. I see three options:

A. We find some team desperate/stupid/drunk enough to take on Thome's contract. Ryan plays at first for the next fifteen years, wins a HR title and a couple rings.
B. We pull a reverse Von Hayes: trade Ryan for literally five players. Starters, catchers, centerfielders, whatever we can get. Maybe more than five, if we can pull it off. Wade's replacement will think of something.
C. We move Thome to third. Don't laugh! Andrew thought of this recently and we've discussed it ad nauseum. Thome started out at third many years ago. He knows the deal. He's not the third baseman Bell is, but guess what? I don't care. He hits exponentially better than Bell, and Bell's kinda erratic at third anyway. If Thome is adequate then he's an improvement. I'm cold, I know. Bell's done all he can. But just mull this Thome/3B idea in your head for a little while. You like it, you know you do.

This weekend, you are a Cubs fan. And if the Marlins can beat up the Braves, that would also be helpful. Atlanta ain't won the division yet. Anything's possible here in the crazy '05.

Not so bored after all

If the baseball gods descended in their baseball-shaped spaceship and asked me, short of a WS win, what I would want most out of the Phillies, I might say something like "Well, I'd love a four-game sweep of the Braves, complete with lots of embarrassing Braves errors for good measure." Well, I didn't get the sweep, but they won three out of four at least, and there were indeed a couple of Braves errors that led to Phils runs. (I would have loved that fourth win, and I was also hoping they would keep Andruw Jones from hitting his 50th HR in Philly, but you can't have everything - in this town you gotta take what you can get.)

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2005 Phillies are frustratingly streaky. They stunk the place up in April and May, then opened June with an astonishing 12-1 homestand (that probably also saved Ed & Charlie's jobs). After that, they tanked a roadtrip, came home, and got demolished by the Red Sox, and my ranting about that is available in the archive. Then they kind of picked it up for a while, climbing back into the wild card race and even leading it for a little while - and then got swept by the Astros.

I think, whatever happens this season, that Astros series will be remembered (at least by me) for a long time. It was legendary. The Phils came in with their wildcard lead shaken - they had just lost 2 of 3 to the Nats in DC and looked bad doing it. Houston was a must win - anything less than a sweep, in fact, would have been a problem.

And - barring perhaps the Red Sox sweep in June - I'm not sure I've literally ever seen the Phils look as bad as they looked against Houston. Game 1 was a winnable one, lost at the end when Charlie put Endy Chavez in to pinch hit. He struck out on three pitches - if you had hung out with me that week, you would have heard me almost constantly spouting my alternating hatred for Chavez and Charlie; I couldn't decide who I hated more. It was almost two weeks ago - I don't want to relive it, but believe me, I was enraged. I was at Game 2 - so sickening and terrible, I briefly flirted with tossing my Phils cap over the seats in disgust. The 'Stros won it on a series of stolen bases; it was awful. I mercifully missed Game 3 (I was out dealing with my own ridiculous non-baseball problems that night) but it sounds like it was the worst of the bunch, somehow.

After that, I decided the Phils were cooked. The 12-1 homestand, the powerful offense, the pleasantly surprising pitching, the lights-out bullpen: I decided that all of these things were illusions and that I was doomed to another depressing September of pointlessness. That's right: I gave up on my boys. (Hey, there's a reason I haven't updated this thing in almost a month.)

But the Phils didn't. They beat up on the Marlins to snap the losing streak, but then blew a lead on Saturday. But this Phillies team is different - suddenly, a bad loss didn't kill them like in the past - like just a week before. They bounced back on Sunday. Then got a clutch performance from Eude "The Man" Brito on Monday. Then a fun rally on Tuesday. Then a beat-down of the Braves on Wedensday - at that point, Jones' 50th homer was meaningless. Let him have it, he's earned it.

A disappointing loss on Thursday - but another beat-down on Friday. I had figured that Friday would be the key game - if they lost, it would prove that these Phils are like the Phils of old - letting one loss spiral into many. Emotionally fragile, bickering, heartless, apathetic. But I was wrong - they bounced back on Friday and looked good doing it.

And then came Saturday's game.

Dontrelle was dealing all afternoon, making the Phils look stupid. By the 7th or 8th, I wrote the game off, conceding the Marlins a win for their best pitcher, but still with high hopes for a win on Sunday and a 2-1 series win.

But. But...

If you didn't see it, click here and scroll down to "top of the 9th".

I wish I had taped it - whenever I'm feeling low, whenever the ugliness of life makes me doubt the existence of beauty, joy, and goodness, I could pop in the tape and watch the Marlins melt down and the Phils take a crucial win, and learn to feel good again.

It's fitting that the rally started off with Rollins extending his hitting streak. It's probably no coincidence that the Phils' recent success has coincided with his streak. And maybe I was wrong all along - maybe he's a fine leadoff hitter. Maybe Charlie knows what he's doing after all. (I still wish he hadn't put Chavez in that game... no, no, never mind.) Maybe jerk fans like me who take this silliness far too seriously should calm down, shut up, and give the professionals the benefit of the doubt. Maybe.

So what am I watching here? The Inquirer today made the case that yesterday's ridiculous, historic rally is the kind of thing that happens to exciting "Teams of Destiny" - like the 2003 Marlins, for example. (Or the 1993 Phillies???) So am I watching a team suddenly find itself, peak at the right time, and fight its way into the wildcard? Or am I watching another typical Phillies tease? Are these guys finally going to actually kill me this year?

Last week the Phils wondered why they were getting such small crowds in the heat of a playoff race. It's true that the crowds were disappointing for the Braves series - the team was suddenly playing well again, it's a hated divisional opponent, and the weather was nice. But the crowds were small and skeptical. It's obvious that people have been burned a few two many times by this team, and aren't ready to believe.

I even have that problem, sometimes. Go back and read my 2004 entries to find out how much they've burned me in the past.

But this is the 2005 Phillies - let's all pop in our tapes of the 10 run rally before we decide.