great – last year’s red sox or any other world series champion
good – phillies
average – braves, marlins
not goods – mets
bad – nationals

thats my scale in a divisional setting. they can probably get to the world series as they are because of the lack of good teams in the national league. but they need more pitching stability in the rotation and in the bullpen to win the world series. maybe another bat that doesnt strike out as much as ryan howard would also help this team.

Exactly Mike T, the Phillies have the 2nd best record in the NL, and 5th best in all of baseball. Not good at all. I can’t imagine what you would say if they are were playing .500 ball…

how dare other teams walk chase utley to get to the cleanup hitter. thats so arrogant and they got away with it because howard swings at anything that looks liek a breaking ball low and away

nice win tonight again. some of you guys get all arrogant when theyre on a roll like this and start making fun of mike t or some others. id say take it easy guys. yes, enjoy these wins. they were god wins. however, the braves re-exposed some glaring deficiencies with the pitching staff. kendrick pitched well tonight and when the fifth starter gives you that then you get him out of the game like charlie did at that time. the problem with this team is still starting pitching. its still not enough for the playoffs. this bullpen is overworked and they should not have had to use lidge tonight. three of your give pitchers are really only safe to use for 6 innings. thats killing this bullpen. they need one of the 3,4,5 starters to go 7 regularly. they arent getting that and they need to bring someone int here who can do that. period. myers needs to start giving you seven or 8 every time out there. hes beeen much better lately and he needs to keep it up. romero is a little out of whack, id give him a rest but they dont have anyone who can should his part of the burden. they DEFINITELY need another left-handed bullpen arm to take the burden off of romero and allow him to regain his form. someone that you can send out there in a key situation and not cringe on every pitch.

this team is fully capable of winning a championship and i expect them to. in order to do that, they need better pitching. the american league is more hyped on tv because they have the offense AND the pitching that has dominated the national league for far too long now, generally speaking. guys, jamie moyer is not going to hold the red sox or some team like that IN THE WORLD SERIES to one or two or anything less than 5 runs if hes lucky. adam eaton wont even be allowed to start in the playoffs even if hes in form i trust kendrick more than him. cc sabathia, chien ming wang, and john lackey all got shelled last year in the playoffs at various points in time. even those guys get smoked in the playoffs sometimes. you dare think the phillies rotation can shut down some of these offenses in a world series matchup?

give me another guy thats as good as myers is supposed to be. then you have a pretty good rotation to bring to the table.

starting pitching needs to be effective consistently so that your bullpen can be more rested and effective when youc all upon it. the philies had the same problem last year and they didnt fix it in the offseason.

the offense this year is just as good and probably better than it was at the end of last year. the bullpen is better than it was last year. the starting pitching is probably a little better than last year but its not good enough from top to bottom to get it done. all we are asking for is one more guy. you can even rent him for all i care, ill let up on that requirement. just get me a guy that can win game 2′s to setup myers for game 3and i will feel a lot better. there will be some available at the deadline if the general manager cares enough to go and get one.

anyway. they played well lately despite all of that and now we shall see how eaton fares against chipper jones and mark texiera and co. if he holds this lineup to 3 or less runs then i will rest easier tomorrow.

Just thought this would be interesting to point out.

The ’01 Mariners (League Record 116 game winners)
-ERA 3.54
-Runs/Game 5.2

’08 Phillies
-ERA 3.88
-Runs/Game 5.8

If my math is correct the Phillies actually have a better differential this year than the ’01 Mariners. So how is it possible that they are not a good team when they are essentially playing better than the best team ever (by numbers/wins). I understand that you will come back with the fact that they did not win the world series, but my point is just to say that this team is very good, actually they are elite, so saying they are not a good team and that they are not winning convincingly, but they are, on average winning more ‘convincingly’ than the ’01 Mariners.
These numbers are from baseball-reference.com

-interesting note, both Freddy Garcia and Jamie Moyer were on that ’01 Mariners team.