Phillies may be down,
but certainly not out

In the Batter’s Box
By Matt Godfrey

These are the types of games that winners win.
The types of games that help a team pad its numbers.
A real winner would have rolled through these games to keep with its winning ways.
The Phillies should have been able to roll.
Instead, they got the wheels moving and looked like they were going to roll, and then they got a flat tire.
They just love keeping us in that limbo-state of limbo they’ve had us in all season long.
They played two series against two teams that have set up shop in the basement of the National League all season.
Each series showed a different side of their personality.
They did what they were supposed to do against the Washington Nationals during the week, but failed to duplicate that against the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend.
The Washington series saw them win two out of three games and pull one game closer to the National League-leading New York Mets in the standings.
They continued their success when they rolled into Pittsburgh and won the first game of the series against the Pirates.
That win tied them atop the wild card standings with the San Diego Padres. Momentum was working in their favor. Then they did what they always do.
They let it slip away.
Again.
They went on to lose the final two games of the series, watching 4-0 leads in both games vanish when their pitching caved in, and fell a game behind the Padres in the wild card and five games behind the Mets in the division.
Had they won just one of those two games to take the Pirates series, they would have kept the momentum going.
Honestly, this is not a sign of the end of the season.
These losses do not mean that the Phillies are out of playoff contention. It just means that they are making things a lot harder on themselves.
The outcome of this past week is not normally all that bad. Usually, winning three out of six is OK — but not when the teams in front of you are winning five out of six.
That is exactly what the Mets did to keep their stranglehold on the lead in the East.
I will admit that there is something different about this year’s Phillies, though.
Usually at this time of year, fans start paying more attention to football, and the Phillies are left for dead as they stumble to the finish.
However, now it seems like the Phillies are making it a lot harder on fans to walk away.
Although they have been in the wild card race the past few years, it’s not usually until later on that they creep back in. (Not like they are doing now, where they have been in it for a while.)
They have also been defying the odds. Despite numerous injuries this year, the Phillies have never given up. If one guy goes down, someone else steps in and steps up.
The biggest question of all this season was pitching. Right now the Phillies have five pitchers that I am comfortable with sending to the mound.
The bullpen was atrocious in the beginning of the season. However, they have had a good run since the All-Star break.
They have made hay with three guys who have been designated for assignment by other teams in the last 18 months (Jose Mesa, Antonio Alfonseca, J.C. Romero) and another guy (Clay Condrey) who has been recalled enough from AAA Ottawa to be on his third passport this season.
Whatever ‘it’ is about these guys is hard to tell. But the one thing that should be easy is winning series like the ones they played this past weekend.
Things are not going to get any easier in their next two series when they play the Padres and Mets. As of Monday there were 39 games left on the season, and things are only going to get harder from here on out.
It’s time for the Phils to decide if they want to be playing in October or not. ••
Columnist Matt Godfrey can be reached at 215-354-3113 or mgodfrey@phillynews.com