It’s been a long time since things have gone right for Brad Lidge. Yesterday’s cortisone shot to his surgically-repaired right elbow is no exception. Lidge had surgery on his knee and throwing elbow this offseason though Phillies team physician, Michael Ciccoti, says that the cortisone shot (given to help with soreness) has nothing to do with the surgery. So I guess that’s a sign that the surgery hadn’t gone wrong. Or maybe it’s a sign of yet another problem for his elbow. Who knows.

Either way, Lidge won’t be ready until at least mid-April, which means Ryan Madson will assume the closer’s role until then. And J.C. Romero remains MIA for health reasons. With the memory of Lidge’s epic failures in 2009 still fresh in our minds, we have to look at the bullpen as this team’s achilles heel. The Phillies seemed resistant to the idea of parting ways with Lidge last year; if he has another season where he blows anywhere near 11 games, there’s a very real possibility this team will not win a much improved N.L. East.

That’s what Roy Halladay thinks, according to philly.com. At least that’s what Lou Holtz said, or maybe Ben Franklin. In any event, “WDIAMITWS” was the quote Doc invoked in response to the opening salvo of the annual preseason war of words between the Mets and Phillies. Mets’ ace, Johan Santana, was asked on Thursday who he thought was the best pitcher in the NL East. Not surprisingly, he answered “Santana.”

To be fair, I don’t know that Santana is wrong. His 2009 effort was his worst as a Met, a season marked by injury and unimpressive numbers. While the Phillies’ brass and local media would have you believe that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher since Sandy Koufax, the numbers don’t exactly support that. Santana has a better career WHIP than Halladay (1.113 vs. 1.198). He averages more strikeouts per season than Halladay (173.3 vs. 149.5) and fewer hits per season (143 vs, 199.7). Santana also has a lower career era than Doc (3.12 vs. 3.43), though he does give up an average of 1.8 more walks than Halladay per season. And Santana has won 2 Cy Young Awards in the American League while pitching for the Minnesota Twins. Halladay has 1 CYA as a Blue Jay.

I don’t know that there’s much of a difference between the two. In fact, other than the last two seasons Tim Lincecum put together, there aren’t better bodies of work among current pitchers than those owned by Santana and Halladay. Obviously the media wants to make a big deal out of Santana saying he’s the best pitcher in the division but in reality, there’s no reason for him to say anything other than that.

Jonathan Sanchez came within a Juan Uribe error from tossing a perfect game last night against San Diego. He gave up no walks and struck out 11 (and got some help in the 9th from Aaron Rowand in center field) on his way to baseball’s first no-hitter in 2009. To put his performance in perspective, only 5 other pitchers since 1900 have thrown 11K and 0BB in no-hit bids. Unfortunately for Sanchez, he’s the only member of this group to have not recorded the perfect game (his teammate, Randy Johnson, is on that list).

While Sanchez hasn’t had much of a season otherwise (3-8, 4.69), his no-hitter last night is another feather in San Francisco’s pitching cap. The previous night, reigning N.L. Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum (10-2, 2.33), took a no-hitter into the 7th inning. Tonight, Matt Cain (10-2, 2.42) will take the mound against the Padres. And on Sunday former Cy Young winner, Barry Zito (5-8, 4.43) will start for the Giants. No stranger to no-hitters (or perfect games, for that matter), 5-time Cy Young winner, Randy Johnson (8-6, 4.81), will reclaim his spot in San Francisco’s rotation once he returns from a sore shoulder.

Sanchez’s no-hitter marked the Giants’ MLB-leading 13th shutout of the season. It should also have marked the moment Ruben Amaro committed to do everything he can (if he hadn’t already done so) to secure Roy Halladay. The Giants pitching staff (especially with Lincecum and Cain at the front end) is built like the Presidio for the playoffs. And despite Joe Blanton’s (6-4, 4.44) strong performance last night against the listless Pirates (which Brad Lidge did everything in his power to ruin), the Phillies starting rotation looks shaky and leaderless.

J.A. Happ is the only starting pitcher with an ERA lower than Barry Zito’s (3.04). He’s also the only starter with a record more than 2 games over .500 (5-0). Cole Hamels, the Phillies’ titulal ace, is 5-5 with an ERA of 4.70 and Jamie Moyer is 8-6 with a 5.99 ERA. In fact, things are in such disarray there isn’t even a 5th starter now that 2-game substitute Rodrigo Lopez is hurt.

If the regular season ended today, the Phillies first-round opponent would be the San Francsico Giants (who have 2 more wins than the Phillies). Even the most dyed-in the wool homer would be hard-pressed to successfully argue a scenario whereby the Phillies pitchers could out-duel the Lincecum and Cain-led Giants staff. The Giants have 3 pitchers with Cy Youngs (7 total) and their front two are a combined 20-4 with sub 2.45 ERAs. There are still a few months until the playoffs so for a team no longer content to win a diminished N.L. East, the Phillies front office is going to need to make some noise before the trade deadline and seriously upgrade the rotation. Otherwise, it’ll be a very short October.

I’ve been getting a kick out of watching an increasingly-angry John Kruk on Baseball Tonight lately. Most notably is his use of the above phrase to describe boneheaded, error-filled play that seems to happen exclusively in the N.L. East.

One such gem this week involved Austin Kearns of the Nationals (of course) sliding into nowhere, as demonstrated on withleather.com

Another beauty was any moment from last night’s Mets (of course) loss to the Dodgers. For some unkown reason, the Mets were only charged with one error in the game though just about everything they did in the field resembled a Renaissance Faire. The highlight of the game, though, was Manny Ramirez’s ejection, ostensibly for littering the field with equipment upon being called out on strikes on a pitch that was at least 3 furlongs outside.

Buster Olney has a good piece on what a crap-ass division the N.L. East has become. If you’re not an espn insider and you can’t read the article in its entirety, just take this stat to heart: no division-leading team has fewer wins than the 1st-place Phillies (37), in fact only one other division-leader has fewer than 40 wins (L.A. Angels, 38). And this from a division that includes the Washington Nationals, a team with 20 wins. The 2nd-worst record in baseball (Cleveland and Arizona are tied) is 10 games better than the Nats.

And Jayson Stark thinks the lack of power pitching has something to do with the Phillies’ abyssmal home record.

The good news for Phillies fans is that their team will begin a 9-game road trip tonight in St. Petersburg, Florida as they take-on the Tampa Bay Rays. There are three reasons the Phils should feel right at home there: 1. pleasant memories of a Game 1, 3-2 win there last October on their way to winning the World Series, 2. the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area is their home for the month of March (and they can leave Jimmy Rollins with the Threshers if he has a bad series) and 3. anywhere but Citizen’s Bank Park seems like a good place for the Phils to play a baseball game.

The American League East is undoubtedly the best division in baseball and should be the barometer against which every team in baseball measures itself during the 2009 regular season. To demonstrate how bad the Phillies are playing, the 4th-place Rays have more wins (37) than the NL East-leading Phillies do (36). What’s more, the Phillies are 3-9 in interleague play (all against AL East teams) and have only won 1 of their last 9 games (all against AL East teams). To boot, their most-recent losses were 3 in a row against the AL East cellar dwellers, the Baltimore Orioles. To make the prospects for turning it around tonight even worse, the Rays are 8-4 this season in Interleague play (and are a 55% favorite according to AccuScore).

Of the upcoming series with his former team, Pat Burrell took a nice jab at the Phillies on mlb.com, saying “I haven’t really been following what’s been going on, but I don’t think the Phillies have been playing very well, so hopefully we can get a few games.” Despite his veiled ignorance of what he knows damned-well to be a dry stretch for his ex-teammates, Burrell and the Rays must be feeling confident and eager to get another crack at the Phillies. You’ve got to figure a healthy Evan Longoria feels exactly that, having gone 1 for 20 last October with 9 strikeouts.

If the Phillies are going to turn the first half of the season around, it’ll have to start tonight and rest on the left arm of Jamie Moyer. Despite the atmosphere surrounding last October’s rematch, in real time the World Series is becoming a distant memory. And if the Phillies have any hope of believing themselves capable of repeating, they’ll need to invoke their one strong suit so far this season: their 23-9 road record; Tampa Bay seems as good a place as any to call their home away from home.

Tonight is a great baseball night. The two best rivalries in East Coast baseball are in full swing as the Yankees look for their first win against Boston this year (their 7th try) and the Phillies are in New York to take on Jeans Shorts Nation. The Phillies-Mets rivarly has come into its own in the past 3 seasons as both teams have been competitive simultaneously, one of the things that adds luster to any rivalry. Like the Yankees and Red Sox who seem even favorites to vie for the AL East each season, the appeal of the Mets-Phils rivalry just keeps getting better as they’ve been (arguably) the best two teams in the NL for the past few years. And with the Phillies World Championship won, both these rivalries as well as all 4 teams individually have put East Coast baseball back where it should be, at the top.

The only thing I’d like to see more of in the Phillies vs. Mets rivalry is nastiness. Boston and New York have a longer history of mutual hatred and even in recent years have produceed more fireworks. To name a few, you’ve got Pedro dropping octogenarian, Don Zimmer (above) and Jason Varitek KOing A-Rod. Sure, Jimmy Rollins and K-Rod have talked smack before the season but where are the beanballs and the brawls? Say what you want about the Sox-Yanks being overhyped but there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind those two teams genuinely hate each other. I’d like to see a little more of that from the players when the Mets and Phillies collide.

On a positive note, Baseball Tonight’s Chris Singleton doesn’t think the Phillies have the pitching to defend the title. He suggests that over the course of a full season, the big bats that have propelled the Phillies to first place in the NL East will eventually cool and that pitching and defense are what win in the playoffs. Singleton thinks it might be a good idea for the Phillies to look into the possibility of signing Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy or Erik Bedard.

How did Singleton get that job? His insight and research diligence are almost as carefully crafted and disciplined as mine. I wonder how much espn had to pay in royalties to use the copyrighted cliche “defense wins championships” for this article. What, the Phillies pitching staff has struggled, Brett Myers is out and there’s uncertainty about their prospects for the season? Where did he get this fascinating and insightful information? What’s this, the Phillies might be interested in Oswalt, Peavy or Bedard? Gee, I hadn’t heard anything about that. It’s amazing, almost like he consulted the Oracle at Delphi to glean such a brilliant and unique read on the situation.

As I’m sitting here on my deck on a bright, beautiful early summer day the Phillies are .5 games behind the Mets in the NL EAst. The Phils’ record is 26-20 after beating the Nationals last night 5-4. This means they’re now 8-2 against the Nationals and the Nats are 13-34 on the season, an absolute disgrace.

The Phillies are averaging almost 13 hits in their wins against Washington this year and 11.4 hits in all 10 games against the Nats. It’s almost depressing that 30% of the Phillies’ wins this season are against Washington; it feels like a tarnished record. Then again, you go out and play the schedule you’re given and win the games you should. But really, the Phillies stranded 13 runners last night and still won. The bad news is that once this series ends there are only 6 more games against the Nationals all season.

There are two very postive happenings for Rich Dubee’s pitching staff. What if I told you the Phillies added a pitcher yesterday with a record of 1-0 and a .125 BAA, a .43 WHIP and an ERA of 0.00? Would that be something you might be interested in? Well, if that pitcher were LH Sergio Escalona and that record came on 2.1 innings pitched this year your ears would certainly perk-up and your trousers would push outward, forming a tent shape around your lap.

More importantly, Brad Lidge was perfect last night for the first time since April 11 against the Rockies (unless you count his 2 pitch appearance against the Nats on May 17th). He struck out Christian Guzman and Nick Johnson to end the game, no small feat considering they’re hitting .329 and .335 respectively. With a powerful setup man in Ryan Madson, a returning J. C. Romero and a re-established Lidge, the back end of the Phils’ pen could get real good real soon.

Say what you want about interleague play but it’s a reality and the NL East vs. AL East is the best scheduling matchup possible for the Phillies. Having recently returned to the pantheon of elite East Coast baseball, the Phillies deserve to be sharing the national stage against the Yankees and Red Sox. Add last year’s World Series rematch to the mix (Tampa Bay) and the opportunity to revisit the loss in the 1993 World Series to Toronto and the Phillies interleague schedule looks real juicy (plus Baltimore, just to keep sales of The Wire high in Philly).

Because the Phils exorcised the demons of 1993 by winning last season, it’s safe to take a look back on the last back-to-back World Series winners since the ’77-’78 Yankees, the 1992-’93 Toronto Blue Jays. Tsn.ca has a pretty good article from last week about the construction of those teams (Pat Gillick was GM) and going through some of the players on those squads, it’s no wonder they were as good as they were. One great fact mentioned was that in 1993, Toronto hitters finished 1-2-3 in the AL hitting standings: John Olerud (.363), Paul Molitor (.332) and Roberto Alomar (.326). That quality of hitting at the top of the order was good for 847 runs on the season. By comparison (and to end this post on a positive note), the 2009 Phillies are on pace to score 936 runs.