Going live: Phillies on the cusp

ANOTHER PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apparently I have been misinformed - tonight's nightcap is, indeed, on television. So tune in and watch all the pageantry from here at Citizens Bank Park. In the meantime, I mentally prepared myself to go live tonight. Since it will take heavy medication in order to bring down the self-induced buzz, I'm just going to go through with it. Why not? I have a Starbucks IV drip in my right arm and I have been chugging diet coke at a steady rate all afternoon so I'm going to be up for a while. What the hell? I might as well be productive. Now off to the demise of Ned Yost...

Play with fire and there is a really good chance that skin grafts could be in your future. Along those lines, people generally slow down to check out a car crash, a barn fire or "American Idol."

Yes, we enjoy watching other people's failure. Actually, we revel in it. Sometimes we even do a little touchdown dance at the end of it. This afternoon, nearly 46,000 people screamed, shimmied and shouted as the Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers for the third time in a row. Oh sure, most of those cheers were for the Phillies as they rallied to within a game in the wild-card chase against the Brewers, but a little bit of it was a taunt.

The Brewers are in free-fall mode and it seems as it is all going to end with manager Ned Yost's head on a platter.

Under Yost's watch, the Brewers are poised to ruin another season with a failed playoff march. In this case, the Brewers have lost 10 of their last 13 games and could see a four-game lead in the wild-case race vanish by the time they board the charter bound for Chicago this evening.

The intriguing part - the car-crash part, if you will - is that some of the fault rests squarely on Yost's shoulders. For instance, Yost wasn't too keen on bumping up workhorse ace CC Sabathia to pitch on short rest in the must-win game of tonight's day-night finale. In fact, Yost was adamant about holding the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner to open the series against the Cubs on Tuesday night when the reality is that the Brewers need to win now.

Tomorrow might not matter.

Yost's non-move that directly helped the Phils on Sunday afternoon could be the watershed moment of his demise in Milwaukee - perhaps more so than the scuffles that had occurred in his dugout this year.

In this instance Yost opted to allow lefty reliever Brian Shouse to remain in the game with one out and two on during the bottom of the eighth with the slumping right-handed hitter Pat Burrell digging in. Yost stuck with Shouse despite the fact that hard-throwing righty Eric Gagne was warming up in the bullpen and owned an 0-for-3 mark with a strikeout against Burrell.

Never mind the point that Burrell went to the plate hitting just .138 (4-for-29) during September and a .172 average since the end of July, Yost stuck with the soft-tossing Shouse. The reasoning was that his lefty was a groundball pitcher and Burrell did hit a grounder. The problem was that the ground ball did go at one of his fielders.

"When you're struggling, things never seem to go your way," Yost said.

Conversely it could be said that people make their own breaks. Generally, there is a reason why some teams get lucky - it's because they put themselves in a position to be lucky. That said, there is a definite difference between a ground ball out and a ground ball single. In the case of Burrell it helped him pick up a game-winning RBI and set the table for Shane Victorino's game-breaking three-run homer a few pitches later.

Better yet, it set the table for the Phillies to draw even with the Brewers and then stick them in the rear-view mirror.

It's probably time to forget about the Brewers and keep an eye on the Astros, Cardinals and Mets.

Here are tonight's lineups:

Phillies 11 - Rollins, ss 28 - Werth, rf 26 - Utley, 2b 6 - Howard, 1b 5 - Burrell, lf 8 - Victorino, cf 7 - Feliz, 3b 27 - Coste, c 39 - Myers, p

Brewers 1 - Hart, rf 7 - Hardy, ss 5 - Durham, 2b 28 - Fielder, 1b 8 - Braun, lf 25 - Cameron, cf 30 - Counsell, 3b 18 - Kendall, c 37 - Suppan, p

Stick around... I'll be back closer to game time.

Thursday morning: Double threat spells trouble

Get a load of this: The Phillies lead the National League in home runs and stolen-base percentage with an eye-popping 85 percent. Better yet, that 85 percent comes out of the second-highest total of stolen bags in the league. In 143 attempts, the Phillies have been caught stealing just 22 times.

That comes to approximately one caught stealing per week.

So based on those stats, how come the Phillies are not in first place? Better yet, how can the team that leads the league in homers and stolen base percentage is not running away with the division?

What's the deal?

Maybe the .253 team batting average is the culprit - or the middle-of-the road .330 on-base percentage. But then how would that account for the third-most runs in the league?

What about the 1,006 strikeouts, or does that just manifest itself in the paltry batting average? Certainly it can't be the pitching. After all, the Phillies have the fourth-best ERA in the league (3.91) as well as the second-best bullpen ERA (3.26).

So come on... what's the deal? Why are the Phillies chasing the Mets in the East and the Brewers in the wild-card race?

During this decade there has been no team to lead the league in both homers and steals. In fact, it hasn't even been close. Most teams just don't have that type of balance or versatility.

Doesn't there have to be a reason why the Phillies find themselves tied with the Astros and a half-game ahead of the Cardinals for the wild-spot? Clearly they are some sort of statistical oddity that defies logic, but someone has to have an answer...

Right?

Anyone?

For the Inquirer, Phil Sheridan suggests that the team is playing uninspired baseball. After storming back to overtake the Mets in 2007, the Phillies have suddenly turned into a team that appears to have difficulty with the pressure of a pennant race.

Rich Hofmann, in his blog for the Daily News suggests that the bullpen is simply fried. The eighth inning pitchers - Chad Durbin and J.C. Romero - just can't get the elad to closer Brad Lidge the way they did during the first half of the season.

Noting that he really doesn't have too many options as far as roster flexibility, manager Charlie Manuel seems ready to patch work the rotation the rest of the way, making ample use of the two remaining off days. In the Wilmington News Journal, Scott Lauber lays out how it might play out. Accordingly, the Phillies could go into the final weekend of the season with Brett Myers, Jamie Moyer and Cole Hamels lined up.

But to make that all work, Manuel has to send Moyer out to the mound on just three-days rest on Thursday night. As Todd Zolecki points out, Moyer has pitched 17 times on short rest during his long career, so if someone has to do buck up for the Phillies, it might as well be the 45-year-old lefty.

Todd also pointed out that the Phillies announced their post-season ticket plans... maybe they're jumping the gun a bit.

Meanwhile, in New York they are starting to breathe a little easier following the Phillies' loss to the Marlins on Wednesday afternoon. With a 3 ½ game lead with 16 to go, the Mets are in a pretty good spot - perhaps they are even in a better spot than they were last season when they had a seven-game lead with 17 games to go.

How could that be? Two words: Carlos Delgado.

Ben Shpigel explains in The New York Times that Delgado is doing for the Mets this season what Jimmy Rollins did for the Phillies during the epic run for the playoffs last season. With Delgado, Shpigel writes, the Mets are just as fearsome now as they were during the run to the NLCS in 2006.

Needless to say, the four-game series this weekend against the Brewers will go a long way in determining which direction the Phillies will be going during the final fortnight of the season. We'll find out if they are still a threat to the Mets, fighting neck-and-neck with the Brewers, or booking vacation itineraries for early October.

Coming next: Lance Armstrong's return.