The Time is Now

The Phillies' recent struggles need to end soon, but the upcoming schedule does not exactly look promising for that to happen. The series with the Padres starting tonight is an important one, as well as the following series with the Marlins. After these 7 games, we have 15 straight against the American League, against which we have always been horrible. Looking at our schedule up until the All-Star Break, there is really nothing easy about it:

4 against the Padres (first place NL West)
3 against the Marlins (1.5 games behind us)
3 in Boston (who we have already lost 2 of 3 to)
3 in New York against the Yankees (2nd best record in baseball)
3 against the Twins (first in AL Central)
3 against the Indians
3 against the Blue Jays (3rd in AL East but with a better record than us)
3 in Cincinnati (1st in NL Central)
3 in Pittsburgh
3 against Atlanta (3 games ahead of us)
4 against the Reds (once again, 1st in NL Central)

Nothing about this is easy. Yes, the Indians are terrible, but they are still an American League team and we usually suck against them. The Pirates are not too great either, but we can't be too confident about any team when we're playing the way we are.

With all of that being said, it is important for us to make a statement in this series against the Padres. They do not have much of an offense to speak of, ranking 23rd in batting average, 26th in home runs, and 21st in RBI. They're in first place, however, because of their pitching. Their pitching staff has the lowest ERA in all of baseball. Combine that with the Phillies scoring less than the Flyers* since last Monday (14 for the Flyers, 11 for the Phils), and we could be in trouble. But now would be the time to get our offense back on track. Against arguably the best pitching staff we will face, it would be huge to win 3 of these 4 games, and I think it is very possible. We shouldn't need to score more than 4 runs in any game in order to beat the Padres. Halladay and Hamels should win their games, and that would leave it up to Moyer or Blanton to pick up a 3rd win. We need to pick up some kind of momentum going into a long stretch of interleague play.

The Phillies often pride themselves on taking the season one game at a time and forgetting about the day before. It is time that they live up to that claim, forget the last 10 or 12 games, and start winning some games that we should win. If it doesn't happen now, it is hard to see when it will.

*On a side note, if you're too depressed about the Phillies right now, check out those Flyers. They'll look to even up the Stanley Cup Finals tonight in Philadelphia. It seems like both the Flyers and Phillies are in must-win games tonight. The Flyers would be in trouble falling down in the series 3-1 and going back to Chicago. The Phillies would be in trouble losing with Halladay on the mound when they need to turn things around. There will be a lot of excitement tonight in Philadelphia all within a one-block radius.