MVN - Most Valuable Network

One Bright Spot in a Dark Sky

Not a good home stand for the boys in red pinstripes.

With the rare exception of Shane Victorino’s walk off homer yesterday, and Saturday’s game pitched by Cole Hamels, which earned him his eighth win of the season, the last two series played at Citizens Bank Park lacked energy, spark and excitement to say the least.

A sweep by the Diamondbacks, who are having a good year, is difficult enough to swallow, but when the mediocre Giants come in, look like World Series Champs, and hand you two embarrassing runaway losses, there’s trouble in Mudville.

The Phillies played like a different team during the lackluster 2-5 home stand, so different from the team that swept the Braves a week earlier.

The negatives are too many and too depressing, so I’ll focus on the one bright spot. Cole Hamels is reminding me more of Steve Carlton everyday. As a kid in the early 70s, I remember going with my family to Veteran’s Stadium whenever Steve Carlton was scheduled to pitch on a Saturday or Sunday. The team was pretty awful then, but you could always count on Lefty to break up a losing streak. It was almost as if you were guaranteed a win when he pitched. Hamels has taken on that role for this team, and it’s much needed.

The Phillies on paper have a lot of talent and potential. But there’s no time like the present to face the facts that they prove time after time. They have as many ups as they have downs, which makes them nothing more than a 500 team.

It doesn’t get any easier, as the Phillies head into New York for a three-game series with the Mets. If they get swept, they’ll be 11 games back, which is a number that is nearly impossible to recover from.

We may already know the answer, but this upcoming series could tell us how badly the Phillies want to contend for the rest of the season.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.