Point: The Phils are 55-33, the best record in the majors.
Counterpoint: They had the best record last season, and look where it got them.
Point: The offense continues to struggle way too often. Of their 88 games going into this weekend's series with Atlanta, the last three games before the All-Star break, they've scored fewer than four runs in 46 of them. That's over half, if you're math-challenged.
Counterpoint: In those 46 games they're 18-28. That's a .391 win percentage, which is much better than most, if not all, teams. That's a testament to the performances of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels. In their other 42 games, the ones where they've hit the magic four-run target, they're 37-5 (with two of those losses coming this week, oddly enough).
Point: That rotation is so formidable.
Counterpoint: If the offense continues to put pressure on them to be excellent instead of merely good so often, might they not weaken just enough so that, come October, they're not quite as excellent as they need to be? And with Roy Oswalt out with his back problem and Joe Blanton (remember him?) not yet ready to return, the Phils have to keep Kyle Kendrick in the rotation along with youngster Vance Worley. (By the way, with all the praise of Worley, how do we know that Worley 2011 isn't Kendrick 2007 -- promising now but ultimately not all that great?)
Point: The hitters who have been slumping so much will come around. And they'll get a big right-handed bat at the trade deadline to help protect Ryan Howard.
