Wake Me Up When September Ends: Phillies Seven Games Back in NL East

On Saturday, September 12, 2007, the Philadelphia Phillies lost 12-0 to the Colorado Rockies at Citizens Bank Park to fall seven games behind the New York Mets in the NL East with 17 games to play.

From that point forward, the Phillies won 13 of their final 17 games, including a three-game sweep of the Mets in New York, and won the NL East by one game as the Mets suffered a historic collapse.

The Phillies may have lost to the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday to fall to 1-5 since the All-Star break, but let’s not lose perspective here.  Every team is going to win 54 games, every team is going to lose 54 games—it’s how you play the other 54 that separates the good teams from the bad.

With Jamie Moyer facing Chris Carpenter in St. Louis last night, the Phillies were not destined to win.  And, news flash—with Joe Blanton facing off against Jaime Garcia, they probably won’t win tonight, either.  Things won’t get any easier for the Phils, with Moyer almost certainly headed for the disabled list and Kyle Kendrick having been demoted to Triple-A.

But while it feels like the Phils are losing the winners right now, there’s still a lot of season to be played.  There’s still time for slumping hitters to improve, there’s time to make moves to improve the pitching, and there’s still time to get our injured superstar second baseman back.

It is tempting to say the season is over because the Phils are seven games back on July 21, but frankly, I don’t want to hear about it until September 13.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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