Experienced Phillies look to playoff novice

Two years ago the Phillies were playoff novices. Of the 25 men who went to the quick, three-game series against Colorado in 2007, only Abraham Nunez, Aaron Rowand, Wes Helms, Tad Iguchi, Rod Barajas, Kyle Lohse, Jose Mesa and Jamie Moyer had appeared in a playoff game. The funny thing about that was only Moyer came back the next season. The rest were long gone by the time spring training rolled around.

This time around playoff experience might be one of those intangibles the Phillies have that could separate them from the back. Of the sure-thing players that will be on the 25-man playoff roster come next Wednesday, only two players have no experience heading into the postseason.

Strangely enough one of those guys will probably be the starting pitcher in Game 1.

Cliff Lee was a member of the 2007 Cleveland Indians that went to the 2007 ALCS, but he did not appear in any of the games for the Tribe because he had been optioned to Triple-A at midseason.

The next year he went 22-3 and won the AL Cy Young Award and now he is in the playoffs for the first time with the Phillies.

Needless to say he’s pretty excited.

“Charlie hasn’t told me if I’m going to be the guy out there in Game 1, but if I am I’ll be ready,” Lee said while teammates came by to pour beer over his head and down his back. “This is what you train for during the offseason—it’s to be ready for the playoffs, and I’m excited about it.”

Ben Francisco came to Philadelphia with Lee in the deadline deal that fans raved about because it solidified the top of the Phillies’ rotation. However, with Francisco as part of the trade the outfield became rock solid, too.

Serving as the team’s fourth outfielder, Francisco slugged five homers with 12 RBIs and a .259 average in 33 games. Combined with Cleveland, Francisco belted 15 homers with 45 RBIs and a .252 average in 122 games. Those aren’t bad numbers for the top right-handed hitting option off the bench.

But the addition of Lee and his possible role as the lead man in the rotation will be one of the major themes in the next week as Game 1 approaches.

Of course there are some concerns, too. Lee will make his final regular-season appearance on Thursday night while looking to regain the form he displayed in his first handful of outings he had when he joined the Phillies.

He went 5-0 with a 0.68 ERA in his first five starts with the Phillies, but is 2-3 with a 6.35 ERA in his last six. It’s possible, says manager Charlie Manuel, that Lee could be a little tired. After al, the lefty has thrown 226 innings this season. Only five pitchers—and one National Leaguer—have tossed more.

“I feel strong, if that's what you're getting at,” Lee said. “I feel as strong as I have all year. That's what you work all offseason for, is to prepare for a long season and hopefully something extra there at the end. I feel like I've done everything I need to do to be in a position where I'm at right now.”

The Phillies will soon find out as their prized acquisition gets into the playoffs for the first time ever.

The first rule of Fight Club...

Here’s my Saturday night: Sitting downstairs with my laptop, remote and 1,529 Comcast Digital Cable channels, I found myself drawn to two different shows that were on simultaneously. One was Game 6 of the ALCS where the Red Sox bludgeoned the Cleveland Indians thanks in part to a pair of players that were once tied to the Phillies. One, of course, was the pitcher Curt Schilling, who came up big in another huge game. The other was J.D. Drew, whose first-inning grand slam pretty much ensured that there was going to be a Game 7 on Sunday night.

As the rout carried on into the middle innings I flipped to the epic movie, Fight Club where I found myself riveted to that scene where Ed Norton pummels the holy living hell out of Jared Leto in a hard, spare concrete basement. Folks who have seen the film agree that it’s a pretty ridiculous scene. It’s where Norton as Tyler Durden beats Leto, a soldier to the “movement,” with an unbridled rage and fury that leaves the onlookers to ponder the meaning of the beating. With Leto prone and Norton forcing his knees onto his chest to gain leverage in order to rain blows onto his face well past the breaking point, the camera switches to Brad Pitt, Norton’s alter ego, who simply shakes his head with disgust at the sight of Norton's handiwork.

Clearly Norton/Durden didn’t "get it" at all, Pitt/Durden implied.

Nevertheless, Leto returned to the so-called “Project Mayhem” undeterred. With his face grotesquely swollen and most of his teeth scattered back on that basement floor, Leto’s character chastises Norton in a later scene for not sticking with the Nietzsche/Robin Hood principles of Project Mayhem. The message seems to be that Leto is clearly a "believer" who realizes that everyone has to take a beating every once in a while. Norton, on the other hand, is conflicted about his role as leader of a “guerrilla terrorist of the service industry.”

So as I’m flipping back and forth between the two beatings I was trying to figure out if I could apply the scene in Fight Club to either the Red Sox or Indians. Are the Red Sox like Leto in that they remained resolute in achieving the goals of Project Mayhem despite the beatings in three straight games that left them on the brink of elimination?

Or are the Sox more like Norton, who in the end of the movie has to destroy his alter ego in order to (re)gain control of himself?

Quickly I realized that my inner dialogue was just talking bleep. I was just looking to spice up a Saturday night spent in front of a laptop and TV.

Yes, it was all a stretch. The Red Sox and Indians is just another baseball series that will come down to one, final Game 7 tonight. Fight Club is nothing more than a movie based on a novel that, according to the author Chuck Palahniuk, is about “a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.”

I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I also suppose that when it comes down to it I was looking for some way to make the ALCS meaningful and relate it to the esoteric – yet mainstream – pop culture.

And I failed. It just doesn’t work.

Be that as it may, it should be interesting to see the Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch in Game 7. Remember when he first arrived in the U.S. last spring? Remember how he was supposed to be the second-coming of Walter Johnson because he could pitch 900 innings a season and throw 300 pitches a game with his wacky, gravity-defying “GiroBall?”

Yeah, well, Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA in 32 starts in 2007 for the Red Sox. From a statistical standpoint, Matsuzaka is less like Walter Johnson and more like Paul Byrd but with more whiffs per nine innings.

Speaking of Paul Byrd…

Snowy Series?

So we can all thank Paul Byrd for giving us a Colorado-Cleveland World Series. Really? Colorado will play Cleveland in the World Series in nighttime games scheduled in late October? Wow. Does anyone want to bet that the first-pitch temperatures never make it above 50 degrees? Better yet, will there be snowflakes falling during all the games or just the ones in Denver? Of course Cleveland hasn’t won anything yet. Though they lead the ALCS, 3-1, with the next game scheduled for Thursday night in Cleveland, it seems pretty academic. Then again, most people thought the same thing when the Red Sox went down 3-0 after losing by 14 runs to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. Look what happened then… yeah. It didn’t work out too well for the Yankees, did it?

Anyway, the interesting part about the Indians is what they did to get to the precipice of the World Series. During and after the 2002 season, the Indians got rid of Charlie Manuel as the manager despite the fact that he guided the team to the AL Central title in 2001. Then they allowed Jim Thome to walk away via free agency and used that money they saved to built around "system guys" like Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore and Jhonny Peralta on offense, as well as C.C. Sabathia, Jake Westbrook, Rafael Betancourt and Fausto Carmona on the mound.

This core group mixed with Phillies castoffs like Byrd, Jason Michaels, David Dellucci, Aaron Fultz and Kenny Lofton with a under-40 manager in Eric Wedge, appears set to knock off both the Yankees and the Red Sox in the playoffs.

And all it took was getting rid of Manuel and Thome?

That probably wasn’t the entire case. After all, Indians’ fans really wanted Thome to re-sign with the team instead of going off to Philadelphia for six-years and $85 million. But then again, Thome’s departure (obviously) didn’t hurt too badly, either.

But, it could be argued that for the Indians it was Thome and Charlie - no. But Byrd, Michaels, Dellucci, Fultz and Lofton - yes.

Incidentally, those "yes" guys were all players Ed Wade brought in (except for Dellucci) to help the Phillies get to the playoffs... was Ed Wade on the right path here in Philadelphia?

So we’re looking at a Colorado-Cleveland World Series… I wonder what the folks at Fox think about that? Do they have the modern-day, TV execs' version of smallpox and whiskey to thwart the Indians and get the big-market Red Sox to the World Series. Maybe when the World Series begins the Rockies will actually lose a game and make it interesting.

More importantly, what's the difference between the Red Sox and Yankees these days anyway?

*** Speaking of ballplayers getting and wanting six-year deals worth $85 million, I just talked to a “source” about Aaron Rowand (because talking to sources is actually better than talking to the man himself… after all, it’s better to be “well-sourced” than, you know, anything else) and it seems as if the free-agent centerfielder has lessened his demands a bit. According to the “source,” Rowand does not want six-years and $84 million as a well-sourced "sources" indicated. Instead, the Phillies likely will offer fewer years and money, but will trump all deals with a “One Free Backrub” coupon.

Also, according to the "source," Rowand wants all the brown M&Ms removed from the pre-game, clubhouse spread.

There will also be incentives for an All-Star appearance, home runs and fences run into and all that jazz, but apparently the backrub coupon is the deal breaker.