Shallow | Center

Neither Rain Nor Sleet ...

NINETY MINUTES of extra sitting wasn't enough to deter Cole Hamels last night. The Phillies' very impressive young lefty flirted with a perfect game and went eight strong innings in a 6-2 win that brought the team up to .500, finally. I caught an inning on the radio while running some errands, but didn't dare try for any more -- after all, when Mom says to respect the streak, you respect the streak. Forty-two large waited out the rain at Citizens Bank Park, which tells me that Philadelphia isn't completely lost as a baseball town. I know that Ryan Howard bobblehead dolls are a major attraction, but the Phils have been drawing awfully well of late. So spare me the talk about fan disenchantment being a reason the team is too tight to play well. A successful season would have this city painted red in an instant. Are the Phillies up for it?

Is It Time to Start Paying Attention Again?

CALL ME  a bad fan if you must, but the Phillies' thoroughly mediocre start has had me tuned out of baseball. As you can tell by recent posting history, I've just not been engaged in the team's win-a-few, lose-a-few April and May. With other obligations demanding my attention, the thought of staying up late or getting up early just to squeeze out a few words on an inconsistent offense and a joke of a bullpen wasn't at all appealing. True to form, though, here come the Phils in mid-May, stringing together a decent stretch of play to close to within a game of .500. Have they righted the ship? Or is this just their usual tease, a mid-season rediscovery of their own talent and potential that is destined to end in September disappointment? It's almost certainly the latter -- those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, after all -- but all of the sudden I find myself looking at the schedule to see when I might be able to get down to South Philadelphia this summer, and trying to figure out how I can shuffle my life around to make baseball (and writing about it) more of an integral part again.

Anybody Got an Ace Bandage?

ARE INJURIES a result of a badly managed team -- one whose failures include, for example, the inability to hire effective trainers -- or are they chance happenings that ruin the fortunes of good teams? The Phillies have whined for years as if the latter situation is true, but with the aches-and-pains trial balloon being floated lately to excuse yet another poor start, I'm starting to wonder. Tom Gordon and now Ryan Howard have admitted that various nicks have contributed to their respective early-season woes. Ryan Madson is down. His recent run-in with a groundskeeper's cart notwithstanding, one wonders whether Freddy Garcia was ever healthy to begin with. How soon before Pat Burrell has a disastrous hair-gel incident?

Flash Heap

THE TSK-tsking the Phillies are enduring right now over Tom Gordon's bum arm is understandable. Rather than fess up about the location and seriousness of Flash's injury, he and the Phils pooh-poohed it, and reporters don't like being pooh-poohed to. Given the team's desperate search to unearth bullpen help, though, their fibbing was understandable. More serious, though, is that instead of tending to the problem, all of the parties acted as if what they were saying publicly was the full truth.

And, of course, it wasn't. And the real issue underlying the Flash situation is this: Either Gordon or the Phillies -- or both -- knew that he wasn't right from the get-go. Yet he still was run out there when the game was on the line, and in the first month of the season he cost the Phils three games. This team isn't good enough to run away from anyone; if it contends for a playoff spot, the race will be tight. Three games could very well mean the difference between playing baseball in October and playing golf.

Maybe If He Had Come to Practice On Time ...

ALLEN IVERSON'S line from the Nuggets' 93-78 playoff loss to San Antonio the other night, which sent Denver home for the summer:

44 minutes, 21 points, 6-for-22 FG

Sound familiar?