World Series Or Bust

102 wins in a season, a new franchise record. 646 wins by a manager, another new franchise record. Roy Halladay. Cole Hamels. Clifton Phifer Lee. Clifton Phifer Lee's June and August. The Hunter Pence trade. Wilson Valdez doing his best Babe Ruth imitation. Chase Utley's inside-the-park home run. In/glorious Antonio Bastardo. "Let's go eat." USA chants. This. Three all-star starting pitchers. Vance "The Vanimal" Worley for Rookie of the Year. John Mayberry Jr.'s walk-off in game one. Everybody gettin' 'dricked. "Free Shane." Setting the 2011 MLB attendance record. Five-time National League East champions. The best team in baseball. The best fans in baseball. Now, onward to the postseason. World Series or bust, right? Right.

Share your favorite regular season moments and postseason predictions in the comments.

Is That All There Is?

What a long, uncomfortable trip September's been. The Astros. The Cardinals. The Nationals. Outside of clinching the NL East, sealing the deal with Raul's nice-a grand salami, it's been a rough couple of weeks. The Phils dropped their sixth straight and final home game of the season last night to the Nats. They were only able to put a couple of Choochers on the board as the Natty bros broke out the brooms. I know that the Phillies are the best and all, but to quote Charlie Manual quoting Ric Flair, "to be the best you gotta beat the best," which has the built in assumption that you've already beaten the worst. To win against either, you need things like offense, hitting the ball with runners on base, as well as defense, which is the opposite of letting balls roll through your legs, overthrowing third base when's it's a close game, and colliding with fellow teammates and Polish sausages. The Phils even made LA channel his inner Harry Doyle this week as he muttered, "Is this season ever going to end?" on air during Tuesday's day game against the Nationals.


I know, I know. Don't freak out. Charlie hasn't jumped off the Walt Whitman just yet. These games don't mean anything. Better now than later. If we had our regular lineup in, everything would be different. Wait, what? It's not just Bowker and Kratz? The A-Team's not really doing much? Well, who cares? They'll get it back. Wait until the postseason. Yeah, we'll get 'em then. It's only gonna get funner. It has to get funner. I can't wait to go paradin'.

Well, I'm still freaking out. It's just too close to the postseason not to think about what happened to the Phillies last year. I think about it every time runners are on the corners and nothing happens, every time there are two hits on the board, and every time that third strike is called. It's just all too familiar. If we lose to the Muts tonight, I don't even know what!

I just hope we'll be hungry enough to go eat again once this terrible hangover's over. Hey, the Indians won at the end of Major League. They didn't start off their season as the best team in the baseball, but you have to admit that there are a lot of striking similarities to the Phillies of the past two weeks. That is, if you have been listening or watching at all.

Feel free to get it all out in the comments.

Radio, Radio

Click on Uncle Wip for
a history of 610 WIP

On my drive into work this morning, I was startled by a loud and crystal clear Angelo Cataldi screaming at me through the FM dial. What followed was a cheesy sound collage, mixing clips of Vance Worley striking out Braves with Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." Rookie Vance Worley strikes out Chipper Jones looking! and Bump... Bump! Bump! Bump! It's the eye of the tiger. While Angelo's raspy voice and Rocky-inspired montages of the Phillies beating the Braves normally make sense with my first cup of coffee, something was missing. Where was the glorious crackling of that AM static?

610 WIP made the move over to the 94.1 FM the day after Labor Day, replacing classic rock station 94 WYSP with sports talk radio 94 WIP, trading the annoying Danny Bonaduce for the annoying Angelo Cataldi. While it's undeniably awesome that WIP's expanding its reach to a bigger and younger audience, I'm glad that it still has a place on the AM dial for old souls like myself. "This just isn't right," my boyfriend turned to me and said as we listened to people call into the soundless void, applauding Vance Worley's greatness. (He is pretty great, now 11-1 after leading the Phillies to their 14th consecutive win with him on the mound last night.)

After switching back and forth between 94 WIP and 610 WIP about ten times, I eventually settled on the imperfect static that was there with me the night the Phillies won the World Series and the morning Cliff Lee was signed. Call me old fashioned, but there's just something comforting about that static.

Tropical Storm Lee to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta

It hasn't been the best weekend for the Phils in rainy Florida. Back in April when Greg Dobbs pinch-blogged "Can the Phillies win without Greg Dobbs?", urging the Phillies to get the old band back together, maybe he had this weekend's series in mind. While Greg Dobbs has, in fact, put up pretty good numbers against the Phillies this weekend and this year, homering against Herndon to seal the deal Saturday night and going 0.371 vs. the Phillies and 0.500 vs. Halladay, yesterday's loss cannot be blamed on Greg Dobbs.

That is, unless Greg Dobbs strategically planted those Phillies "fans" in the bleacher seats to interfere with Hunter Pence's hit in the sixth out of spite. Potential double, home run, or caught ball, we'll never really know how yesterday's 14 inning marathon would have ended due to a couple of ignorant fans that reached over into Bryan Peterson's glove. Wasn't that one fan aware of the rule that says that if you choose to use your cap, protector, pocket, or any other part of your uniform, it is not a catch anyway? How about the rule that says you shouldn't interfere with baseball because it might later cause your team to lose by walking a batter with the bases loaded in the 14th? The only marathon that I was more pissed watching while stuck to a couch was the final season of the Sopranos. It produced a similar reaction of "WTF!?!??! Is there something wrong with my television? Seriously? That's it."

I doubt that the Phillies' protest will take back yesterday's loss, but don't stop believing, folks. Plus, we've got another game today and I've read more than once that Tropical Storm Lee is set to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta. While he has posted his worst numbers against the Braves this year, 1-3 with a 4.98 ERA, keep in mind that Sir Clifton's coming out of a 5-0 August with a 0.45 ERA, some hits, and a couple of RBIs. He's a true Renaissance man. Let's just hope that today's weather report is right for once.

Replace "El Nino" with "Cliff Lee" and tropical storms with "baseball players", and it all makes sense. The magic number's 18. The Phillies are a comfortable 7.5 games ahead of the Braves. Lee has a chance to make those numbers even better at CBP tonight by bringing all tomahawk chops to a halt as he goes for his 16th win and 200th K.

The War of the Broses

The magic number is 22. With an 86-46 record and just 31 games to go, that eight ball that J-Roll shook up that read, "Yeah, we'll win 100 games," back in March might have been right. Another number that's worth calculating at this point is the probability that the Phillies will make it past win 101, the most wins the Phillies have ever had in a season. They reached 101 in 1976 and again in 1977. While the fat lady isn't singing yet, if she was, she'd probably be singing this right now. To the most lovable bros in all of baseball:

Speaking of lovable bros, Vance Worley is probably rolling out of bed right now to take the mound at 12:35 PM. As I recently learned over at the700level, he stays awake until the sun comes up the night before he pitches and sleeps until game time. He even snored through that rare earthquake that shook the entire east coast last week because he had to beat the Mets later. Another thing I learned about the Vanimal recently is that he's been cooped up in some hotel since he joined the big leagues. Who knows? Maybe his strange sleep patterns are actually due to watching Prince's "Purple Rain" so many times on the hotel TV that his life mantra has become that message that appears after the credits roll: May u live 2 see the dawn. Just a theory.

Whether or not he worships in the house of Prince, Vance still needs a place to kick it. I think I've found him the perfect spot- that is, as long as he can pass the drinking tryouts:


On second thought, this pad could be the perfect home for a lot of Phillies bros. The term "fratting hard" brings Michael Stutes to mind as he's been recently donning that pink boa and backpack full of goodies for the bullpen, while "hot chicks" brings Kyle Kendrick's inexplicably hot wife to mind. Plus, bromances, defined on Wikipedia as "a form of homosocial intimacy," have basically fueled this team to its current position in the standings. Just think about it: Rollins and Howard, Utley and Howard, Utley and Pence, Lee and Pence, the Let's Go Eat T-Shirt and Pence, and the greatest bromance of all time, Halladay and Chooch. The options are endless!

Let's just hope that 9-1 Vance Worley continues to "kill it at life" today, bringing us one step closer to a division title and upping the odds for Worley Goggles and Mohawk Night at the Ballpark becoming a thing.

Yeah, bro.

Never Forget: Darren Daulton

Tonight, stop by the South Philly Bar and Grill at 1235 East Passyunk Avenue for a chance to meet famed Phillies catcher, conspiracy theorist, and astral time traveler Darren "Dutch" Daulton! Dutch will be "mixing with the crowd from 8-10 pm and enjoying $2.75 Yuengling Lights," according to the invite I received.

I was wondering how I ended up on the South Philly Bar & Grill's email promotions list until Lauren astutely reminded me that I probably signed my name to something sketchy whilst watching drunken bros form a conga line to a karaoke rendition of "Proud to Be An American" and spit in one of my best friend's faces. Suddenly, it all made sense, and the only thing strange about this announcement was the idea of any 1993 Phils' alumnus being caught drinking light beer.

While we're reminiscing, check out this fantastic post about my personal favorite '93 Phillie and accomplished killer of brain cells, John Kruk, who was inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame last week.

Let's Go Eat

Nadine and I wanted to make our triumphant return to blogging with a nonfiction novella about that awkwardly lovable right-handed bat from Texas with no first names, Hunter Pence. How could he not be an instant Phillie fan favorite? The old-fashioned socks, the wit, the appetite, the Cliff Lee hooking him up with cowboy boots. Swoon! He's pretty much the anti-Werth outside of the right-handed bat thing. That no longer rings true for Werth, as his batting average hasn't helped anything but bar prices since he took that long walk to DC. But every time I plan on writing a post about a Phillie that isn't Kyle Kendrick or go to a game that Kyle Kendrick isn't pitching at, I am a total jinx. Sure, Pence singled last night after striking out three times, but I still managed to mess up that nice statistic about the Phillies winning whenever Pence hits. So let's save that goofy gangletron for another day, talk about why I couldn't sleep after last night's loss, and then go eat.

Let us first reflect on the Great Doctor and Cy Young Collector Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III. The same question is probably on everyone's mind whenever Doc goes into the ninth. While he's especially good at getting out of jams and pitching a quick and efficient nine innings, maybe Charlie should let the relief pitchers work every now and then. While Doc has proven us all wrong before, and it's awesome when he does, last night's loss to the D-Bags was especially rough knowing that in addition to neck tattoos, the D-Bags also lead the league in comebacks. Last night marked their 35th of the season. Doc also had his first extra-base hit ever in addition to pitching a solid game which did not help my mood. Instead, it made me reminisce on that postseason no-hitter he also had a hit in. Memories. I guess losses are just tougher on nights when you feel the Roy Halladay magic.

That brings me to my second point about them late innings bats. Tuesday's bottom of the ninth was difficult to watch: one out, runner in scoring position, and Ross Gload and J-Roll strikeout. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Harry Kalas statue was also revealed last night or that I haven't been won over by Gload yet or that I had one too many beers, but before he even got up to bat, an old mantra popped into my head, "In case of emergency, use Stairs." Matt Stairs' home run was the last Harry the K called in 2009, and while Stairs was released from the Nats earlier this year, I wanted him to fly in then and there to save the day. That, or I wanted John Mayberry Jr. to be pinch hitting instead of pinch running.

You could replay Tuesday night's game a lot of different ways to make yourself feel better. At the end of the night, the next morning, and the next day, it's still just baseball — at least until the clock strikes 7:05 PM. I guess it's best to just maintain the same attitude as a fan of baseball that Hunter Pence does as a recent addition to the best team in baseball. “This is nice,” Pence said, “but I definitely don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Let's go eat.

Hitters Gonna Hit

The Phillies had a season-high 18 hits to score a season-high 14 runs against Chris Volstad and the Marlins last night. This is only the second time this season the Phillies have scored more than 10 runs in a game. The other time was an 11-0 win against the Mets on April 7th. What made last night's win so beautiful were all those old time Phillies coming through with the bats. J-Roll had four hits and three runs scored. Ryan Howard had four hits including a two run homer in the third. He finished with four RBIs and three runs scored. Seems like old times—am I right? Now is where I finally insert the song "Phillies Fever" by all the Phillies greats from the '70s in high hopes that it will help the Phillies bats stay alive (ah, ha, ha, ha):

Even Michael Martinez came through late in the game with a 3-RBI base-clearing triple. After the game Uncle Cholly said, "We jumped our team batting average some, didn't we? Did we get over .250?" After some basic research, I found that we sure as hell did: the Phillies batted .409 last night. Boom!

Breaking News: Mayberry Returns

The Phillies have recalled OF John Mayberry Jr. from AAA Lehigh Valley to fill the roster spot vacated by Vance Worley. The "Vanimal" (who's rocking a 0.72 ERA and sick bro-hawk since returning to the big leagues on June 16th) was optioned last night. Don't worry, kids, it's just to make sure he stays on his regular pitching schedule.

Tonight, Cole Hamels takes the mound against Chris Volstad and the Florida Marlins. Cole (9-4, 2.41 ERA) has been looking for his tenth win of the season since beating the Marlins on June 14th. Final Vote candidate Shane Victorino will not play tonight. Instead, he'll return to Philly to have a sore thumb looked at. Uh-oh.

All-Stars, They're Just Like Us!

The Phillies, 53-31 at press time and still the best team in baseball, are sending (at least) four players to this year's MLB All-Star game.

Thanks to an insane spring (which, unfortunately, seemed to end as soon as June began) and a shallow pool of competition, Placido Polanco won the fan vote and will start at third base. And, for the first time, the Phillies will send three—count 'em—three starting pitchers to the All-Star game: Halladay, Hamels, and Lee. The last time they came close was when Curt Schilling and Paul Byrd each made the team in 1999. Who do you think should get the start for the NL this year?

What I would really like to see, however, is a spot on the team for Carlos Ruiz. Our Aces wouldn't be what they are without Chooch calling games and providing rock solid defense behind the plate. It would be nice to see that acknowledged on the big stage of the Midsummer Classic.

Finally, Shane Victorino has a chance to win the Final Vote and be a National League All-Star for the second time in his career. He needs our support—click here to vote now. The Flyin' Hawaiian has been carrying this offense lately; he deserves it. Just gonna need to see his birth certificate first. (Kidding!)