Sixth inning: Is that a rally?

OK, has it gotten ridiculous yet? I mean really… come on. Hamels has allowed hits in back-to-back innings after Craig Counsell dropped one into center with one out. To top it off, free-swingin’ Mike Cameron drew a 3-0 count before drawing a five-pitch walk.

That’s two straight hitters on base in a row!

!!!

Hamels quickly put out the fire with his eighth strikeout of the game vs. Bill Hall before getting Ryan Braun to pop up to short. Still, the Brewers actually had a runner in scoring position.

Apropos of nothing, one of the TV dudes from Milwaukee actually cheered in the press box after Counsell’s single. C’mon… what is that?

On the other hand, it’s a good thing Hamels is dealin’ because the Phillies aren’t hittin’. Aside from that little uprising in the third, the Phillies have pounded out a lusty three hits. Had Mike Cameron been able to haul in Chase Utley’s double, the Phils would be in a precarious spot.

Instead, they might be cruising.

End of 6 Phillies 3, Brewers 0

It's when, not if for Phillies

Last season the Colorado Rockies finished the season by winning 14 of their final 15 games. Carrying that hot streak into the playoffs, the Rockies won seven more in a row to land in the World Series. The crazy part about that was the Rockies were in fourth place with 12 games remaining in the season and third place at game No. 161. Had they gone 13 for 15, it would not have worked out. Certainly the Rockies’ hot streak through the last two weeks of the season and into the playoffs was one of the greatest closing runs ever. Six times they won by two runs or less, including a pair of extra-inning affairs.

In the understatement of all time, things just clicked for Colorado.

Meanwhile, things certainly are clicking for the Phillies these days, too. With five games remaining in the season, the Phillies can one-up the Rockies great closing run by winning 15 of their final 16 games. But unlike the Rockies, it doesn’t seem as if the Phillies are going to need the all-or-nothing surge. Instead, the Phillies fans aren’t thinking about “if,” the big question is, “when.”

As in, “When are they going to clinch?”

Yes, going 10 for 11 during the season’s final fortnight has a crazy way of putting things into better focus. After all, it wasn’t even three weeks ago when the Phillies left Washington, D.C. after a crippling 9-7 loss to the hapless Nationals that put their playoff hopes teetering on the balance. The slightest slip up at Shea Stadium against the Mets could have sent things spiraling out of control. A week later, after dropping a three-game series to the Marlins at the Bank, the margin for error got even tighter. Trailing the Mets by 3½ games with 16 to go seemed like too big of a mountain to scale.

Instead, 11 games later we’re sitting here wondering “when,” not “if.”

“Things happen. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes you don’t,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “You’d be surprised. When you're going good, somebody will hit a screaming foul ball. It goes foul by about six inches. What happens if he hits it on the line or something?”

Certainly Manuel isn’t losing much sleep over things like balls that land centimeters on one side of the line these days. Everything is working out for his club these days – every move is the right one, like when September call up Greg Golson entered Monday’s game as a pinch runner only to go from first to third before a pitch had been thrown.

In the ninth, with lights out closer Brad Lidge unavailable after a full weekend of closing out games in Miami, Brian McCann’s long fly ball to left field off Ryan Madson just missed being a two-run home run by inches. Rather than cutting deep into the Phillies’ lead, McCann’s hit was a simple double – nothing more than a chance for the Braves to pad their left-on-base totals.

So with five games to go in the regular season, the Phillies can seal things up before the weekend. Another victory over the Braves on Tuesday coupled with a loss by the Brewers ensures a Game 163 playoff game even if the Phillies lose their final four games. Better yet, two more victories ought to be enough to sew up the NL East and most likely send the Dodgers to Philly next week for the NLDS.

But if the Mets fold up again and the Brewers slip past them for the wild card (the Mets lead is one game with six to go), then the Phillies get to host Milwaukee again.

No matter the scenario, the Phillies are sitting pretty. Two more does the trick…

It not a matter of if, but when.

*** Speaking of which, it seems as if the Mets' pitching is in full self-destruct mode as the games become more important. On Monday night, the fans at Shea were masquerading as empty, orange seats after an early battle against the Cubs turned into a laugher when pitcher Jason Marquis slugged a grand slam to break open the game as if it were a 10-pound bass.

So that's the way it is, huh? Are the Mets nothing more than a dead fish waiting to be carved up?

Maybe so.

Either way, the Mets are not getting too far ahead of themselves like they did last year when it appeared it was simply a matter of "when," not "if." Because of that, the team installed extra seats near the dugouts to handle the overflow crowd and high-rollers in need of tickets for the playoffs -- a plan that became foolhardy when the Phillies caught them on the last day of the season.

This year the Mets aren't acting so quickly on the extra seats. With six more games to go and a wild-card berth looking more like the best post-season possibility, the club will wait to install those seats.

In the meantime, manager Jerry Manuel is looking to infuse his with the proverbial shot in the arm(s). Though it seems tenuous at best, starting pitcher John Maine could come off the disabled list in time to work out of the bullpen.

The best bet for the Mets, however, looks to be the notion that the Brewers are an even bigger dead fish with no more fits and flops left in them for one last push.

In the meantime, the Phillies could have the luxury of resting a few arms before learning who their first-round opponent will be.

*** The Philly scribes now have all angles of the J.A. Happ-as-Marty Bystrom bit covered. At least we do after Rich Hofmann chatted up the always loquacious Dallas Green for the latest update on the premise.

Big D's big quote in Rich's story?

"Marty did one hell of a job,'' he said. "We don't win without him - that's for sure. We'd probably still win without Happ but we wouldn't have won without Marty. He was 5-0, he started two games for us in the playoffs and the World Series. He was a hell of a pitcher, he really was, for a kid. He just got himself all messed up afterward. He got a sore arm.

"He never really got, I mean, that was Marty's shining light, that September,'' Green said. "Hopefully J.A. will get a little more than that.''

My favorite part of the other Bystrom story by that other guy was when it retired pitcher revealed that he did not know he was going to pitch in the decisive Game 5 of the NLCS until after the Phillies won Game 4. That meant all Bystrom could do was go home and take a nap before attempting to pitch the Phillies into the World Series.

“I hadn’t pitched in nine or 10 days and Dallas came up to after Game 4 and said, ‘You got the ball tomorrow, kid,’” Bystrom said. “I said, ‘I’m ready.’”

I guess Rich's story is better... at least it's shorter.

Post-game: Phillies in Control

Needless to say, it was quite a bizarre scene in the Phillies’ clubhouse following the 6-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday night. One would have to imagine the scene was downright surreal at the other end of the corridor deep in the bowels of Citizens Bank Park at the visiting team’s clubhouse. There, sprinkled in amongst the members of the local press were ballplayers eyeing the television sets hung from the ceiling in the middle of the clubhouse all tuned to the final inning of the Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitter against the Astros. Strangely, while Zambrano was tossing a no-no against the home team Astros, the packed house was jumping and dancing in the aisles all clad in Cubs shirts. In fact, it was a home game in name only for the Astros.

Hurricane Ike forced Major League Baseball to move the game to Milwaukee’s Miller Park – just 90 miles away from Chicago – while Houston gathers itself after the crippling storm.

Meanwhile, the Brewers watched as the Cubs celebrated on their home field. After the game the Cubs probably sprayed champagne and danced the night away in the Brewers’ clubhouse. Odder yet, the Brewers and the Cubs play each other on Tuesday night – in Chicago. When the Brewers go back to Miller Park the clubhouse will probably stink of stale champagne, a scent the home team likely won’t have to worry about come the end of the season.

The Brewers’ Ryan Braun could only shake his head as he wondered about the celebration going on in his home clubhouse. There Braun was in Philadelphia suffering after a fourth straight loss to the Phillies as their season spirals out of control while a party raged in Milwaukee.

"They're probably drinking champagne and having a beer shower right now in our locker room while we sulk about what happened here," Braun said. "It's ironic, where we're at as a team and how we feel at the end of this series and see them celebrating a no-hitter on our field."

He’s certainly right on that point. At least he was on Sunday night after Brett Myers and Joe Blanton combined to pitch 16 innings of seven-hit ball to guide the Phillies to a day-night doubleheader sweep. As a result, the Phillies gained four games in a single weekend to forge a first-place tie in the National League’s wild-card race. With 12 games to go in the season, the Brewers and Phillies have identical 83-67 records. The only difference is that the Phillies have won seven of their last 10 after dropping two of three in Washington.

The Brewers, on the other hand, have lost 11 of their last 14 games and trail the Cubs by 7½ games in the NL Central.

The Phillies have a magic number of 13 in the wild-card race with a two-game advantage on the Astros. However, the Phillies and manager Charlie Manuel don’t have all their eggs resting in one basket. Oh no. That’s because a second straight NL East division title is still within reach.

Don’t look now, but the Mets lead the Phillies by just one game after the New Yorkers lost for two of three against the Braves.

Do the Phillies have the momentum going into the final two weeks? Charlie Manuel thinks so.

“I believe in momentum. I believe in what do you call it, attitude, charisma and when you come to the ballpark everything is OK,” Manuel said. “Everybody is in a good mood and upbeat. Everybody’s happy. People ain’t walking around sulking because they ain’t making enough money or something happened at the house. I don’t know but those things happen.”

Credit the Phillies starting pitching for the surge. Actually, in the case of Brett Myers and his complete game two-hitter pitched on just three-days rest, maybe the Phillies can give the Brewers an assist.

In an effort that will create positive aftershocks for the bullpen heading into the six-game road trip through Atlanta and Florida, Myers needed just 95 pitches to spin his gem. Then again, that’s nothing new. After all, the Brewers were quite generous with 45-year old Jamie Moyer last Friday night when he beat them despite working on three-days rest as well.

According to Myers, the pitcher figured it out early that he didn’t have to be overpowering.

“They were really aggressive,” Myers said. “Then again, I wasn’t looking for the strikeout and I usually go for it.”

Myers threw just eight pitches in the first and second innings and worked up to 30 through the first three. But after a 15-pitch fourth inning, Myers needed just 43 more pitches to complete the eighth inning.

Just to show they were in a hurry to get out of town, the Brewers saw just seven pitches in the ninth. It’s a good thing, too, because Myers said he knew his stuff was less than electric when warming up before the game.

“On three-days rest it’s difficult to give max effort,” Myers said. “I knew that when I was throwing in the bullpen [before the game] that I was going to have to be efficient.”

Who knows if Myers would have been able to come to that conclusion during the first half of the season. After limping out of the gates to a first half that lead to a July demotion to the minors, Myers has returned with a vengeance. A 3-9 first half with an ERA barely south of 6 has morphed into a post-minors stretch in which Myers is 7-2 with a 1.78 ERA.

Even his teammates can’t believe it.

“It was almost like a deadline acquisition,” said Jayson Werth, who had a pair of hits in the twinbill. “The way he’s throwing it’s deadly.”

Manuel says the biggest difference is Myers’ mental approach – a theory that the pitcher wholeheartedly agrees with. After the game the Myers said he needed to go to the minors in order to re-learn how to be a starting pitcher because the season working as the team’s closer in ’07 changed everything.

“I had the closer mentality to get strike one and then strike ‘em out,” he said.

Manuel says it’s a complete 180-degree change.

“I think it’s his focus,” the manager said. “I give him credit for his focus and staying calm. He stays in control a lot more.”

Control is a big thing with the Phillies these days because it appears as if the team has a ton of it. Clearly, the team is well aware of how they sit these days after the four-game sweep.

“We keep going back to last year, but that’s the way it’s lining up,” Werth said.

Said Myers: “It kind of feels how it did last year. Tonight we went out there and got some hits and had some fun.”

Who knows – maybe it will end with a big champagne-filled celebration in the home team clubhouse.