Storm before the calm

Once again it is baseball season, and once again people are freaking out. With the Philadelphia Phillies in first place and losing more games than they are winning in the last 15 or so, it looks like panic time. The hitters can't seem to find the ball. Chase Utley, who leads the league in Home Runs and RBIs was on a 1 for 27 slump, and Ryan Howard who is the big power hitter has been striking out a lot. He does get a lot of strike outs, but he is striking out and not hitting. Even last year's NL MVP Jimmy Rollins has disappeared. The pitching staff isn't all the great, but the person who takes the cake is Bret Myers. Bret Myers was moved from the bullpen, former closer, when they got Brad Lidge. After starting out decent, he has stunk up the joint. He is 3-9 with an ERA over 5 right now. There is talk of sending him back to the bullpen, and moving a set up man into the rotation or sending him to AAA in Allentown. I'll be honest, all the AAA talk is from people on message boards, while it is a good idea it won't happen. All is bleak for the Phillies with on one game lead over the Marlins.
But all is not bleak, it was almost the same thing last year. Last season, the power hitters (Rollins, Howard, Rowand, Burrell) weren't hitting and Utley was injured. The pitching staff was also hurting with Adam Eaton, Jamie Moyer and Freddy Garcia injured. The bullpen also had injuries with Tom Gordon getting hurt and his replacement Bret Myers taking over then going on the DL. The closer for a while was Antonio Alfonseca, who has a weird shape to him for a baseball player. Even with all those injuries and adversity, the Phillies put it together. They went on a monster tear the latter part of the season and won the division. Of course, the Mets helped them out by losing 12 of their last 17 games. But they have been through crap before and got to the playoffs. They did get swept by the eventual National League champions in the first round, but they still made it. Stupid Mets fans couldn't say that their team made it.
I say to Philly fans (or phans) don't worry, I'm not worried. There are too many talented people on the team to be struggling like this all season. Maybe Myers won't get back to the form he once had as a pitcher, because he is injured or a bum, who knows. But the offense should get things going again. If they make a deal for a decent pitcher before the trade deadline, they should be good. A decent pitcher, I don't want to see them getting C.C. Sabathia, I would like him on the team, but the price they would have to pay would be too much. They would only get him for the remainder of the year, because I'm sure they wouldn't be able to pay him Johan Santana like money.