Phillies: Here They Come To Save The Day

It's been a long, tough winter. Budget crises at every level of government, not to mention in millions of households. The absurd path to something resembling health-care reform. The Pope and his church continuing to minimize the importance of doing something about the child molesters in their ranks. The earthquake in Haiti. The horror that is this season's American Idol. A slut named Tiger Woods. "From Paris With Love."

And in more "important" areas locally, a pro football team that ended the 2009 season in heinous fashion and looks to spend 2010 falling fast into mediocrity, a pro basketball team that fell fast from mediocrity into incompetence (but no one cares anyway) and a pro hockey team that was touted as a championship contender, only to fall into a desperate fight to barely make the playoffs so they can be first-round cannon fodder. Speaking of stuff falling, let's not forget Snowpocaplypse, Snowmageddon and Snowverkill.

Enough bad news. Winter, like Donovan McNabb, is gone. Spring has sprung. You can tell because the Phanatic (as you can tell by the photo above, taken on Wednesday) has gone red for a week. The Phillies are back! The 2010 season starts Monday at 1 pm in Washington, with Roy Halladay making his Phils debut. Halladay! Celebrate! Now we've got Roy Halladay...and it's time to celebrate...okay, no more channeling my inner Madonna.


There are some areas of concern to start the season. With starter Joe Blanton and relievers Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero starting the season on the disabled list, the Phils' pitching may be a bit thin. This makes it even more important for Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer to rebound from their poor 2009 seasons, for J.C. Happ to pick up where he left off last year, and for Kyle Kendrick to keep pitching as well as he did in spring training ( for now, in the rotation replacing Blanton).

While others tout the Phillies' acquisitions for the bench, I think it remains to be seen whether they're that much better. And they still don't have a big righthanded bat on the bench.

The signing of Placido Polanco to play third base and bat second should be an improvement offensively, but how close to Pedro Feliz defensively can he get? And is Raul Ibanez showing his age? Injuries slowed him in the second half of 2009, and his hitting this spring has been weak.

Still, I think things will come together well enough. I don't think any of the other National League teams improved enough to overtake the Phils. Look for a fourth consecutive NL East title (the Phils have never finished in first place more than three years in a row) and a third consecutive NL pennant (no team has done that since the 1942-44 St. Louis Cardinals).