A Tale of Two Bullpens

In taking three of four from the Braves this week at Turner Field, the Phils relievers threw 16 scoreless innings--including eight in Wednesday's double-header sweep and four more in last night's 9-4 win. Perhaps most impressive is that Billy Wagner threw just one of those 12.

But while the game was still in some doubt in the 8th inning, the TBS announcers noted that the Phils have lost 11 games this year in which they led during the 6th inning or later. They're currently "just" 5.5 games back for the wild-card lead, which means that if they had only held on in half those lost games, they would control their own destiny. Todd "Homophobe" Jones, FiFi Rodriguez, Blowberto Horrendez, I'm looking in your collective direction. As well as at the trainer's office, where Wagner and Ryan Madson spent all too much time, and above all at the GM's suite.

Still, it's nice--even if probably meaningless--to finally see them play some good ball: they've won six of their last seven. The fear of course is that, just like the early-August west coast swing, this run of good play will serve to save Bowa's job and just perpetuate the underlying problems. I guess we'll see.