Johnny Goodtimes did all of our sentiments a service with his great piece on how things feel today and how they’ll be remembered going forward. The only thing I can add to that is the expression of a sense of pride I have in how well this team performed and how gracious and classy Philly has been in defeat. When you think about it objectively, the odds of winning a World Series are never good, no matter how strong a team is on paper. This Phillies team not only won 1, but they returned to the big stage and showed not only how good they have been but how promising they are for the years to come.

The odds for next year’s World Series champion are out. The Phillies stand at 10-1. In shocking fashion the yearly ritual, the Yankees and Red Sox are the favorites to win at 3-1 and 7-1, respectively. Like the Phillies the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California are listed at 10-1 as are the Cardinals, the other N.L. team in the top-5. Other N.L. aspirants are the Dodgers (12-1), the Cubs (15-1), the Rockies (20-1) and the Braves (20-1). And in case you were wondering, the Mets are listed at 15-1.

So our favorite sport here at iSportacus is in hibernation for the next 3 months which gives us time to refocus on a very good Flyers team, an Eagles team that is as inconsistent as my putter and a Sixers team which we’re forced to cover periodically. Penn State football should get a boost here in the coming weeks; they have a huge game at home this Saturday against Ohio State in which they’re favored by 3.5. Because they have a loss to Iowa on their card and the Hawkeyes are undefeated, hopes for a trip to the Rose Bowl are distant but hey, they could finish their season with 1 loss which is pretty damned good. And finally, look for a little Temple football coverage. Quietly, they’ve won 6 straight and are bowl eligible for the first time in a long time.

It’s been a great baseball season. Until the proverbial pitchers-and-catchers date, let’s try and enjoy the bounty of other quality sports taking place around Philly.

Perhaps the Cleveland Indians are the National League’s farm team for aces. Last year the Brewers called up C.C. Sabathia during the stretch and this year they parted with Cliff Lee. At least one other person noticed this and wrote about it on espn.com today, comparing Lee’s arrival in the N.L. to Sabathia’s transition from the American League last year. Of course, Sabathia’s heroics last postseason were derailed by a lack of depth in the Brewers rotation and a consequent overuse of his mighty left arm. Let’s hope Cole Hamels shows some moxy and is able to play his role as the shut-down number 2 behind Lee.

After last night’s domination of the D-Backs, Lee has his 4th win for the Phils and looks untouchable. Since his arrival from the City of Departures, Lee has faced the Giants, Rockies, Cubs and Arizona and his numbers give plenty of reasons to get excited:

Lee is 4-0 and has pitched 33 innings of a possible 36 in his first four starts with the Phillies including 2 complete games. He’s allowed 18 hits with 6 walks and 34 strikeouts. Lee has yielded 3 earned runs in 4 games and his ERA is .82 and opponents are hitting .161 against him.

Now let’s take a look at what Sabathia did last year in his first 4 starts with the Brewers:

Sabathia also went 4-0 and pitched exactly 33 innings as well with 3 complete games. He gave up 20 hits and 8 walks while striking out 31. Sabathia allowed 5 earned runs for a 1.36 ERA and a .180 batting average against.

Two things jump out about this comparison. One, the numbers are eerily similar and equally stunning. Two, the Indians traded away two defending American League Cy Young winners in consecutive seasons, both of whom only got better in the N.L. While Sabathia’s singular ability to carry his team to the playoffs eventually wasn’t good enough to win the pennant, his performance from last year shows just how much impact an A.L. stud can have transitioning to the National League (and how frustrating it must be to be an Indians fan).

Lee looks slightly better statistically than Sabathia and plays on a team much better than the 2008 Brewers. Granted Lee only pitches every 5 days but if the rest of the rotation can hold its own, things could look very good for the Phillies.

And in case you were wondering, Roy Halladay is 2-2 since the trading deadline with a 3.30 ERA and a .294 batting average against.

• How much longer do we have to entertain the idea that Brett Myers is an integral part of this team? Everyone seems willing to cut him slack when he’s acting like a Northern Floridian (wife beating, rednecking, bar brawling) but the thing that amazes me is how people seem to always think he’s going to be the answer to the Phillies’ pitching woes. For a guy with a career ERA of 4.39 (4.43 in the playoffs), he’s a pitcher I’d just assume let drift off to sea quietly.
• Remember all that talk about what a lock the Phillies are to win the N.L. East? Well, according to the coolstandings.com season simulation, of current division leaders, only Detroit is less of a lock to win their division than the Phillies. The simulation also shows that the Phillies rank 5 out of 6 (with the Tigers last again) among current division leaders’ likeliness to make the playoffs altogether.
• For all the fanfare surrounding Pedro Martinez’s start against the Cubs last Wednesday (7 hits, 5 IP, 3 ER), he offered little more than a Jamie Moyer start. The big knock against Moyer has been his inability to go late into games; this is exactly the same m.o. Pedro has (remember how Grady Little’s decision to keep a tired Pedro in too long in Game 7 cost Boston the 2003 ALCS, and Little his job?). Here’s to hoping his performance tonight against Jon Garland and the D-Backs tonight shows some improvement.
• For the first time in the past 4 seasons, Ryan Howard is not leading the National League in any significant category (including strikeouts, though he’s on pace to K 199 times this year, matching his career high from 2007). The good news: in the past 2 series (6 games against the Cubs and Braves), Howard is hitting .381 with 4 home runs in 24 at-bats with only 5 strikeouts. And he also has a triple on his card during this stretch, helping to give him an unwordly 1.548 OPS.

It’s that time of year when Phillies fans have the chance to take the road trip of a lifetime to Wrigley Field and watch the Phillies destroy the perenially-lifeless Cubs. At 6 games over .500 and 33-19 at home, the Cubs are theoretically in the playoff hunt. But when you look a little closer, you realize the Cubs have players like Alfonso Soriano (a worse and more disinterested defensive left fielder than Manny Ramirez) and Milton Bradley (crazier than Teddy Duchamp’s dad in “Stand by Me”). Coupled with pitching staffs historically-riddled by injury (Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Rich Harden, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster) and mental midgets like Carlos Zambrano and Lou Piniella and it’s no wonder the product on the field at Wrigley makes the park little more than the “bar” that Ozzie Guillen so accurately described it as.

Don’t get me wrong, Wrigley is a great place to watch a game (especially if you’re a fan of the visiting team). Things like what you see to the left are to be had in abundance and you don’t have to walk through 10 miles of concrete parking lots outside the park in order to get to a bar. Wrigley Field is a model of what an urban ballpark and its immediate surrounding can do for the vivacity and excitement of a city and its fans. And it’s especially wonderful for all the Cubs fans to have so many distractions outside and in the park since nothing on the field is ever worth looking at.

Anyway, Phils win all three. Tonight: J.A. Happ (8-2, 2.74) vs Rich Harden (7-7, 4.41). Tomorrow: Pedro Martinez vs. Jeff Samardzija (their closer is starting? 1-1, 6.29). Thursday: Cliff Lee (9-9, 2.95) vs. Ryan Dempster (6-5, 4.04).

It’s official: Jamie Moyer has been moved to the bullpen and Pedro Martinez will make his debut on Wednesday night against the Cubs. J.A. Happ will start tomorrow in the first game against Chicago. In other pitching news, the Phils have activated Chad Durbin from the D.L.

The margin for error in Major League Baseball is pretty small. The difference between good teams and bad teams, between making the playoffs or not; often it’s simply a matter of inches, as the old cliche goes. Of course, the most even number of all is .500, a number both mediocre as a reflection of a team’s winning percentage and unattainable as an individual’s batting average.

As you might expect, there’s a lot of evenness as this number applies to the standings. Of the 3o Major League teams, exactly 16 teams currently have records better than .500 (a better-than-.500 number of teams, but only by the slightest of margins). Not surprisingly, 8 of these teams play in the N.L. and 8 of them are A.L. teams (the N.L. does have two more teams than the A.L).

As it applies to the Phillies, they are 25-24 this season against teams better than .500 (better than .500 in this category by the slightest of margins) and as you might expect, they are far better against teams under .500 (34-20). If you include their most recent series against the San Francisco Giants, they Phillies are in the midst of a 16-game stretch against teams over .500. Needless to say, their 1-3 start is under .500 but no matter, their next twelve games against the Rockies, Marlins, Cubs and Braves (all over .500) are (you guessed it) an exact .500 split between playing at home and on the road.

As for individuals, in the past 10 days the best batting average in the Majors (based on 45 plate appearances) belongs to Matt Holliday (.526). In a convenient twist of .500 fate, he was traded to the Cardinals who are the only team in baseball with a home or road record of exactly .500 (27-27 on the road).

After 2 games against the Cubs, the Phillies are 2-0 which means they’ve won 5 consecutive series, 10 of their last 11 games and since getting swept by the Braves to open July, they’ve won 14 of the last 15 games. The offense has scored 93 runs during this stretch and the pitching staff is allowing an average of 2.3 runs per game, creating an average margin of victory of 4 runs.

Granted, the records of the Phillies’ last 5 opponents are a combined 18 games under .500 but the Phils are doing exactly what good teams are supposed to do: win the games on the schedule they should. It’s a good thing they’ve cleaned-up in July because their schedule through August will be a lot tougher with series against wild-card contenders San Francisco and Colorado, the N.L Central-leading Cardinals, the above-.500 Marlins and Cubs as well as 6 games against the red hot Braves. As the National League goes these days, this schedule qualifies as pretty tough.

The team’s recent success combined with the Pedro Martinez excitement, J.A. Happ hysteria and Rodrigo Lopez’s recent quality starts has created an environment where fans aren’t demanding Ruben Amaro produce Roy Halladay. Glossing over the big picture of remaining focused on a World Series win by ignoring the importance of making this trade would be an awful by-product of the current streak. Unfortunately for Amaro et al, the trade deadline is looming and a decision will have to be made before the Phils find out what they’re really made of as they face tougher competition.

With this in mind, my optimism for acquiring Halladay took a nosedive today when I read that Brett Myers is suddenly ready to defy his season-ending injury and pitch in August. With the team winning and memories of last October fresh in people’s minds, this development could produce just enough false optimism to steer the team away from trading for Halladay. But this would be a huge mistake.

The Phillies aren’t going to surpise anyone in the playoffs this year. The Dodgers are a better team than last year. Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain are a frightful 1-2 punch for the Giants. The American League representative in the World Series is likely New York or Boston, two teams with seasoned Series veterans and top-2 starting pitchers in Sabathia and Burnett and Beckett and Lester. As they’re currently composed (even with a Myers return), the Phillies starters would be at a competitive disadvantage against all these teams (with the possible exception of the Dodgers).

The Phillies look good right now and they’re doing exactly what they should be doing against inferior talent. As much as it’s possible to say this on July 22, they are a lock to make the postseason. But we should keep in mind that’s not good enough around here any more. If the Phillies are serious about winning a World Series this year, the front office needs to remain grounded and not get distracted by the past 3 weeks’ success. This means trading for Roy Halladay (or another proven top-of-the-rotation arm) and positioning themelves for more challenging competition as the final 3 months of the season approach.

Getting through yesterday without any baseball was like having 19 prostate exams in a row. Alas, I’ve come through unpenetrated and am looking forward to the beginning of the 2nd half of the season. The question for the Phillies is a question that faces the division-leading Dodgers as well: can they hold onto their first place positions for the next 2 and a half months? Or will wild card challengers, Florida and San Francisco, be able to unseat them, operating on pitching alone? In the Phillies case, we’ll get a good glimpse at this division match-up as they begin a 4-game set tonight at newly-named “Land Shark Stadium” against the Marlins. Jamie Moyer faces Chris Volstad at 7:10.

Sportingnews.com lists its power ranking going into the 2nd half and has the Phillies at number 5. The only N.L. team ahead of the Phillies is the Dodgers; hard to argue with that considering the two teams’ records (56 vs. 48 wins for the Phils). Rounding out the top 5 is Boston, the Yankees and the Angels. The Giants are right behind the Phillies at #6, the Cardinals are #8 with the Rockies and Marlins at #12 and #13, respectively.

I think these arbitrary standings speak volumes about how the National League is currently comprised. The Dodgers played far-and-away better baseball than the rest of the League throughout the first half. The Phillies were shaky but hold a commanding lead in their division and the Central is a crap shoot.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the Phillies are the prohibitive favorite to win the East. Aside from L.A., the Giants pose a very real playoff threat as they have the League’s best pitching staff and while they don’t score many runs (368; only the Cubs, Reds and Padres have scored fewer), they do have the 3rd-best run differential (+44; only the Phils (+48) and Dodgers (+105) are better).

As the SN poll asks about the Phillies, “what else will Philadelphia do to improve its rotation? Because, let’s be honest, Pedro Martinez is not a cure-all?” With what we’ve seen from the team throughout the first half this, fellow Phillies fans, has become the $64,000 question.

Since the Phillies are currently romping the hapless Pirates behind another good performance from J. A. Happ and Josh Beckett’s bid for 100 wins is going swimmingly (he’s 1-hitting the Royals), I’m listening to the Cubs-Cardinals game. I’ve been rewarded for going outside my comfort zone by hearing the call of Carlos Zambrano’s home run. And as I’m writing this, the dreamy Albert Pujols has made 6 unassisted outs through 6 innings. Here are some other facts that will make you a better person.

• With the addition of Jayson Werth to the N.L. All-Star lineup, the Phillies will be sending 5 players to the Midsummer Classic. Looks like A.L. and Tampa Bay manager, Joe Madden, has made an addition of his own by replacing the unable-to-attend Dustin Pedroia with A.L. home run leader, Carlos Pena. This move means that the entire Tampa Bay starting infield will be on the American League roster, impressive when you consider they lost stud 2nd baseman, Awinori Iwamura, early in the season to injury.
• Jimmy Rollins walked 16 times in his first 69 games this season. In the first 11 games of July, he’s walked 10 times and is hitting .380 this month.
• J.A. Happ has given up 4 hits and 1 run through 7 today against the Pirates. His K-BB ratio has improved to 2-1 and his ERA has lowered to 2.90. On his way to his 6th win (against no losses) and 4th-consecutive outing logging at least7 innings, Happ may be a candidate for N.L. Rookie of the Year according to Johnny Goodtimes.
• ESPN Insider is reporting that the Brewers may have thrown their hats in the Roy Halladay ring. If true and the interest is serious, this could be a problem for the Phils. The Brewers showed last year they’re willing to mortgage the house (if even for half a season) to get a top-notch pitcher (C. C. Sabathia); I’m not sure the Phillies have ever made a mid-season move that big.

Going into this afternoon’s game against the Dodgers, the Phillies are one game over .500 and 1 game out of first place. While looking at the standings in all 6 MLB divisions, I noticed the Phillies have the worst record of any 2nd place team in baseball. This got me to thinking about the strength of the divsions and to what extent winning a division is important other than the obvious ticket-punching to the playoffs that a win brings.

The conventional wisdom is that the National League West is the worst division in baseball. As it turns out, measured by winning percentage the NL West is a .472 with its 1st place team (LA) owning a .657 WP and its last place team (Arizona) posting a .371. Compared to the NL East things are pretty damned even: the NL East has a .481 WP overall with the 1st place Mets at .545 and the last place Nationals at .344. So the NL West has a .007 worse overall winning percentage but its best team is considerably better and its worst team slightly better.

In fact the NL East is the 4th best division in baseball by winning percentage. The best division is the NL Central at .537 (with the 4th place Cubs owning a better WP (.576) than the 1st place Mets). The only other division over .500 is the AL East (.522). Third is the AL West (.499) followed by the NL East, AL Central (.477) and lastly the NL West (.472) When you consider the depth of the AL East and NL Central, there’s no question those divisions are the best; the winning percentages of the bottom three divisions are separated by less than one percentage point.

Lots changes between now and September but insofar as it’s worth thinking about these things in May, adding to the Phillies’ struggles is the reality that they’re struggling in a division that just isn’t very good. Understanding the NL East for what it is really puts the Phils’ problems in perspective.