Sweet fancy Moses!

The Phillies pulled off a pretty nice victory last night against the Braves to finish the homestand with a 4-2 record. I suppose that should be satisfactory to more than a few folks who like to parse every single word from every single member of the club…

Yeah, you know who I’m talking about.

Anyway, in going 4-2 the gritty Phillies have a slight advantage over the classy Braves for second place in the NL East. Better yet, at 62-55 the Phillies are three games behind the Mets in the East and one behind the Padres for the wild card. At their current pace the Phillies are heading for 86 wins, which they would do by going 24-21the rest of the way. With two consecutive series against a pair of last-place teams, the Phillies should be looking at another 4-2 week.

But let’s get to the bottom line: according to software specialist Ken Roberts’ calculations, the Phillies have a 34.9 percent chance at making the playoffs this season. However, if they continue playing at their current pace, the Phillies have a better than 50-50 chance to sneak into the playoffs. According to the math, 90 wins gets the Phillies in.

That’s 28-17 the rest of the way with games against the Dodgers, Padres and Mets looming.

This could get interesting.

Needless to say, I’m often asked if I think the Phillies can buck tradition and actually make it to the playoffs for a change. It’s a good question, so I’m going to go out on a limb and offer a prediction right here…

Ready? Here it is:

I don’t know. Logically the answer is no because the Phillies just don’t have the pitching. However, even though Adam Eaton has the worst ERA amongst the starters in all of baseball and has an ERA just shy of 10 in his last 10 starts, the Phillies are somehow 4-6 in those games. It’s hard to imagine, but things could be much, much worse.

Instead, the debate is whether the Phillies should replace Eaton in the rotation with J.D. Durbin.

Really? Who saw the coming?

So can the Phillies make the playoffs?

Sure... why not.

***
Want to know how little people cared about the Barry Bonds home run chase? According to Neil Best’s blog, the numbers indicate that only 1.1 percent of the homes that have ESPN2 tuned into the game in which Bonds hit No. 756. Conversely, 22.3 percent of all U.S. households tuned into NBC to watch when Hank Aaron hit No. 715 in 1974

According to Best, 995,000 households tuned in to see Bonds last week, while about 14.9 million watched Aaron pass Babe Ruth in ‘74. That rating would translate to about 25 million homes today, he writes.

Of course there was no proliferation of cable TV or ESPN in 1974. Plus, Bonds played a game that started too late for most east coast households to watch. Nevertheless, 1.1 percent underlies the shift in the media. According to the stats, local TV news saw a ratings drop of approximately 30 percent across the board in the last year, while newspapers have more readers now than in recent years despite a drop in hard copy sales.

The reason?

The Internets!

Or maybe it’s Joe Morgan and Jon Miller of the ESPN announcing crew… apparently they are not too popular.

***
Everyone seemed to enjoy Antonio Alfonseca’s little leg kick after his strikeout to end the seventh inning last night… Sweet fancy Moses!