Rough Road Ahead

By Chris Pollay

Last Friday, the Philadelphia Phillies (61-48) stood poised atop the National League East with a comfortable seven-game lead ahead of Florida as the Marlins headed to the City of Brotherly Love for an important three-game series.

By the time the Marlins left, however, the huge lead shrunk down to only four games and the Phils are suddenly looking quite vulnerable.

It’s not so much that the Marlins outscored the Phillies 21 to 9 and outhit them by a stunning margin of 39 to 21 -- although that certainly helps -- but it’s the road that lies directly ahead. It's not going to be an easy one.

This week the Phillies travel on the road and face two tough ballclubs: the Chicago Cubs (58-51) and the Atlanta Braves (58-54), teams that have beat the Phillies eight of twelve times this season thus far.

And, right now, the Phils look like they would struggle to beat anybody.

After a blistering hot July, they are once again all-too-fallible, losing eight of their last eleven games, including a humiliating 12 to 3 loss to Florida on Sunday where the Phillies were so frustrated that Shane Victorino got ejected while flapping his arms in centerfield (apparently showing his displeasure for the home plate umpire's calls).

I can't blame him, really. It was a lousy day for the home team. Incidentally, 12 runs is the most the Phillies have given up to any ballclub in all of the 2009 season and the Marlins' 19 hits in the game was a season high.

Hmmm. Maybe Victorino was trying to simply fly the Hell out of there.

Still, the home losses to the Marlins are hardly an unusual occurrence this year. It is interesting to note that the Phils and Marlins seems to prefer each other’s ballparks. At Citizens Bank Park, the Marlins are 5-1 in 2009; however, when the two teams meet in Land Shark Stadium, the Phils have won all six games.

Unfortunately, this weekend was played in Philly. Thus, the Marlins exploded offensively right when they need it most. The team batted 39 for 116 (.336) compared to a struggling Phillies club that only hit 21 of 99 (.212).

Helping the Marlins bat like a team of Triple Crown Winners was the Phils’ sputtering starting pitching staff, which didn’t pitch well (4.76 ERA) or deep. They only lasted 17 innings in the series, taxing the bullpen to come in for ten innings in three days. The late inning relievers were simply awful, giving up eleven earned runs and an ERA of 9.9.

Hopefully, the team will enjoy the day off and rest up a bit as clearly fatigue is catching up with them.

The Phillies need to step up this month as they face National League East opponents ten times in the month's remaining 19 games. The club is 25-18 against its own division this season, but if you take out the games against the basement-dwelling Nationals, they are only 15-16.

That's simply not good enough if you want to win the division crown.