Before the Phillies opened up the 10-game homestand with last weekend’s set against the Reds, one of the baseball beat writers made a bold prediction:
"If the Phillies win five of their next seven, they’re going to the playoffs."
Seven of the 10 games were against the Reds and the Mets, both of whom should be playing baseball in October. Needless to say, winning five of seven was a pretty tall order and it looked rather impossible after the Phillies dropped two of three to the Reds.
But following the first two games of the series against the Mets, a four-game sweep – as well as that 5-2 stretch – is quite realistic.
Go figure.
The Phillies have been very good with the bats lately. That’s pretty obvious, especially when they have scored 24 runs in two games against the team leading the NL East by 13 games. Actually, the Phillies’ bats have been excellent when Pat Burrell has been on the bench and both David Dellucci and Shane Victorino have been in the lineup. Since the All-Star Break, the Phillies are 7-3 in games in which Burrell does not start.
I’m not sure what that means, but it seems as if the team’s lineup has a little more pizzazz with Victorino and Dellucci.
Of course, pizzazz isn’t quantifiable by too many traditional statistical formulas.