Shallow | Center

End of the Road

Still Alive, But Just Barely, the Phils Need Too Much Help

THE PHILLIES vented the frustrations of the earlier half of the week on the Marlins last night, and of course the only thing to wonder is why those 14 runs couldn't have been distributed more evenly over the previous few games. For the Dodgers won again, played themselves into a first-place tie in the West, leaving the Phils trailing L.A. and San Diego by two with two to play. I will thus spend the time leading up to today's first pitch mentally readying myself for elimination. To hope that either Los Angeles or the Padres lose their last two, and that the Phillies win their last two, would be a fool's errand. Optimism is one thing. Blind faith in the smallest of improbabilities is quite another.

Update: Major props to the Phils' bullpen, which picked up Randy Wolf in a big way, throwing 7.1 innings of shutout ball to secure a sloppy yet glorious 4-3 win. Shane Victorino played terrific baseball today, especially on the basepaths. Let's go, Diamondbacks. Let's go, Giants.

Update, part 2: Wins by the Dodgers and Padres eliminated the Phillies today. For the 13th straight season, playoff baseball will bypass Philadelphia. Certainly the team will pat itself on the back for making a race of it after a lackluster first half, but any honest assessment of the Phils' effort must start with an acknowledgment that they failed this year.

Mild Card

A Soggy Loss in the Wee Hours All But Ends the Phils' Season

THERE THEY go again. Faced with a must-win scenario, the Phillies endured a four-hour-plus rain delay last night before rolling over to the Nationals. This after L.A. kicked Colorado's ass yesterday afternoon. Which means the Phils are two out with three left to play. They have come up painfully small over the last few days, dropping three of four in a stretch of play that channels the painful underachieving of the last several years. I really thought that shedding players such as Bobby Abreu and Corey Lidle and giving the team to Ryan Howard and Chase Utley and Cole Hamels might herald a new day, and for a while it did. But watching bullpen implosions, Little League defense, and empty bats since Monday tells me Pat Gillick still has work to do. I'm too tired right now to feel the disappointment and the hurt, but I know they're coming. The Philllies had a terrific opportunity to turn a fading season into something special, and in the end, they opted for October golf. Again.

Extra! Extra!

Fortunate Phils Need Additional Innings to Steal One from Washington

HOW TO react to last night's 14-inning epic in the District of Columbia? Exultation at Jimmy Rollins's late-inning heroics? Frustration that it even reached that point, after awful fielding and horrific relief work coughed up leads in the ninth and 10th? Disappointment that the Dodgers won again in Denver to maintain their one-game wild-card lead? As with all things Phillies-related, there is no clear-cut answer. Feelings get complicated, which helps to explain, perhaps, why Philadelphia has such an agonizing relationship with its baseball team.

Zen, Schmen

Two Tough Losses Bring the Worries Back

Remember all of that nonchalance from yesterday? That talk of taking a Zen approach to losing? Yeah, well, today, not so much. The Phillies' last two games, during the most important stretch this team has played in years, have seen them revert back to some of their most crushing bad habits: Tightening up at the plate when runners are on base. The bullpen's blowing a late lead or allowing a damaging insurance run. Sloppy fielding. And, perhaps the most ominous sign, bad luck, evidenced last night by Chase Utley's foul-pole homer that wasn't. Meanwhile, the Dodgers are riding Nomar Garciaparra's surge to stay in the race. I fear the baseball gods sensed overconfidence in Philadelphia and decided to smite us. Forget about Zen; pass the antacid.

The Tao of Charlie

Taking a Zen Approach to the Last Week of the Season

THE TEMPTATION, of course, is to agonize, to seethe with regret at last night's missed opportunity. A seventh-inning meltdown by the bullpen -- keyed by four disastrous walks -- allowed the Astros to sneak past the Phillies, 5-4, and dropped the hometown nine into a tie with Los Angeles in the wild-card race with six games to play. And yet I find myself strangely calm. It shouldn't be this way. I should be preparing the hemlock, convinced that this one small stumble will lead to a 1964-esque collapse. It's just that there's something about how the Phils have conducted themselves since the trade deadline that tells me they'll screw their caps on straight tonight and get back to work. This is quite out of character, of course -- both for the underachieving and inconsistent Phillies and for the fatalistic and cynical yours truly. But when I said I'm in, I meant it. No gnashing of teeth today, no pulling of hair -- just a fervent encouragement to go get the Nats tonight.

Hear That?

From the Crowd to the Play-by-Play Guys, the Sound of Winning Is in the Air

SOMETIMES ALL you need to do is listen. You can tell that the Phillies are playing meaningful games simply by listening to the men calling their games. On Friday, Harry Kalas exploded in spasms of delight when Ryan Howard lasered his homer to left. Yesterday, during the Phils' rain-delayed victory over Floriday, I caught Scott Palmer on the radio when Chase Utley's bolt tied the game at 4-4 early on, and then when Chris Coste's three-run dinger pushed them ahead. In every case, the surge of excitement -- from Kalas, from Palmer -- was nearly palpable. They had to restrain themselves from shattering press-box etiquette and swapping high-fives and bumps. It was enough to give a listener (this listener, anyway) chills. And the Citizens Bank Park crowd! Roar after roar, with every good play, every good pitch, eliciting enthusiastic approval. If David Montgomery and the Star Chamber that is Phillies ownership ever wanted to know what on earth would draw fans to the ballpark, recent weeks provide more evidence than they'll ever need: It's about winning, baby.

The Demands of Fandom

Just When I'm Ready to Walk Away, the Phillies Rediscover the Fun of Contending

NEW JOB, new kid, blog exhaustion -- a perfect time, I figured, to walk away for a bit. Little did I know that the Phillies would pick the exact same time to launch an improbable playoff run. They've won eight of their last ten, and are just a half-game behind the Dodgers in the wild-card race as the season swings into its final days. And last night, I caught the Phils' trim, 5-2 win over the Marlins on TV, and found myself swept back up in the excitement. When Ryan Howard dropped his 58th homer of the season into the left-field seats, and the 40,000-plus responded with a towel-waving frenzy, I actually got goose bumps watching him round the bases. I watched with growing enthusiasm as Cole Hamels again demonstrated why he looks like he could be something special. And I pumped my fist along with Tom Gordon when the Fish went quietly in the ninth.

No one said being a fan is easy. You have to risk a hell of a lot if you really want to believe. You have to risk disappointment, and heartbreak. Phillies fans are intimately familiar with these things. And now the team has pushed its chips to the center of the table and asked me to ante up. Well, okay then. Here's my heart, guys. And my soul. I'm all in.