PHILLIES NEWS

Well Like I said, The Phillies aren't going to win their division this year and with the way they are playing right now they might not win the wild card either. With their loss to the Mets today they fell to 9.5 games behind first, a pretty hopeless position if you ask me. The game started badly for the Phillies and never really got better. In the first inning yet another Phillies starting pitcher, this time Cory Lidle, spotted the Mets an early lead as they scored 4 runs, three on a homer by David bleeping Wright. Lidle as always did manage to settle down enough get through the next 5 innings, giving up only one more run, but once again despite the efforts of the Met-killer, Pat Burrell, who smacked two homers, and knocked in three runs, and Sal Fasano who doubled in a run following Burrell's first homer, the rest of phillies offense squandered their other opportunities and were never able to scratch out the tying run. Following Burrell's second homer in the bottom of the 5th inning the Mets bullpen came in and retired the final 13 batters as Billy Bleeping Wagner got the save with a 1-2-3 9th inning. Add it all up and you get another agonizing one run, 5-4 loss and one frustrated team searching for answers. The one bright spot for the Phillies in today's game was that for once, the Phillies defense did not committ any errors although Sal Fasano did committ a meaningless passed ball. At this stage of the season the Phillies are back at .500(33-33) for the first time since May and it appears that things may get worse for them before they can get better unless they start making changes in a hurry. It is time for Charlie Manuel to stop making excuses and start producing results. He needs to do what he did last year and shake up the lineup for a couple games. He should try starting Abraham Nunez at third base and Shane Victorino and Chris Roberson in the outfield for a change and just see what happens, because the lineup he has been putting out there just isn't getting the job done right now. At any rate the Phils do have some warm weather to look forward to as their is a heat wave forcast for the start of next week. Maybe the hot weather can heat up the Phills as well, because nothing else seems to be working.