Phillies Are Oscar-Worthy

Websites such as Philly.com need to be a little more careful when they update their home page for breaking news -- or breaking sports, in this case...

Perhaps it was intentional, though. Tonight's comeback win would make for one epic movie. (No, not Epic Movie. God forbid.) Down 9-2 going into the bottom of the 8th the Phillies scored 4 runs in the 8th and had the potential tying run at the plate before the inning ended. After Danys Baez pitched a scoreless 9th (that's a shock in itself) the Dodgers brought in their closer, Jonathan Broxton. You may remember Broxton from such spectacular choke jobs as 2008 NLCS Game 4 and 2009 NLCS Game 4. Broxton proceeded to hit a batter and walk the next two to load the bases. Two runs scored on an error by Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake, and Carlos Ruiz hit a two-run double off the fence in deep left-center -- the only base hit of the inning -- to win it.

The Phils have now won 16 of their last 20 to move within 2 games of Atlanta in the NL East and 1 game of San Francisco in the NL Wild Card race (although a fourth straight division title is greatly preferred). Shane Victorino is back from the disabled list. By the end of the month both Ryan Howard and Chase Utley should be back as well. They still need better work out of the bullpen (Brad Lidge's recent resurgence is very important) but things continue to look up.

Phils' w000000000000000000000000000es

Yes, there are 27 zeroes in the title of this post. That represents the zeroes put up on the scoreboard by the Phillies the last three nights in getting swept by the Mets. This is par for the course for the Phils -- when they open up a bit of a lead in the NL East, instead of pouring it on and blowing the division wide open, they inexplicably stumble and allow the rest of the teams to hang around.

On Friday night in the 6th inning Jimmy Rollins singled and, running to first base, reinjured his calf and had to leave the game. Pinch-runner Juan Castro eventually scored. Rollins went back on the disabled list and the Phils have scored just three runs since -- all in the 9th inning Sunday, in a game they trailed 8-0 at the time. They've been blanked in 46 of their last 47 innings. With that lineup, even without Rollins, that should be impossible.

At the end of play Friday the Phils had a 4 1/2-game lead over Atlanta. Their five-game losing streak has allowed the Braves to gain 3 games in the standings since then.