Here's What We Know: Nothing
Last Wednesday, Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus wrote a wise piece noting that baseball analysts like himself shouldn't overreact to what happens in the first few days of the new season. At the time, I nodded at the sage advice.

Then the Phils bullpen coughed up three 8th-inning leads in less than 48 hours, and it became a little tougher to keep perspective. Thursday night at our favorite barbecue place, I interrupted a conversation at another table to correct the speaker that it was Tim Worrell, not Todd Worrell, who'd blown both the first two losses; last night, before going to the gym in hopes of exercising, and exorcising, my rage, I left Annie the annotated linescore of the Phils' come-from-ahead 6-5 loss to St. Louis, complete with stick-figure drawing of my head exploding. I can't remember if this was before or after I interrupted an otherwise-pleasant conversation with my brother by screaming into my cell phone that when you've got a 5-4 lead and four outs to go and the bases loaded, you don't fuck around with your "lefty specialist" but instead bring in your $9 million closer...

Today's 10-4 win over the Cardinals helped flatten me out a little bit. Gavin Floyd, currently taking kudos on the "Star of the Game" postgame radio show, was brilliant against the excellent St. Louis lineup, keeping his cool even after repeated bad calls from notorious lousy umpire "Cowboy" Joe West. Floyd retired 19 straight--more than six full innings worth of outs--after allowing an RBI single in the first. Utley, Abreu and Burrell all homered for the Phils--Burrell has 12 RBIs in five games, as if he's trying to make up for the last two mostly suck-laden years in just a week. Floyd's great start was actually the fourth in a row, following high-quality outings from Brett Myers and Randy Wolf, both disappointments last year, and a gutty five-plus innings of two-run ball from spring training disaster Cory Lidle yesterday. Some other good stuff has been happening as well: David Bell, Mike Lieberthal and Placido Polanco have all hit decently or better. Meanwhile the Mets are off to a terrible start, and Florida hasn't exploded out of the gate either.

All that, however, was put in the shade by the bullpen's disasters. Worrell, who was terrible all spring, seemed to be throwing batting practice out there. Terry Adams, Rheal Cormier and even Ryan Madson have looked shaky. And Aaron Fultz was a total disaster yesterday, walking in the tying and winning runs while Wagner sat on his hands in the bullpen--resulting in a loss, like the one on Thursday, arguably more the fault of manager Charlie Manuel than the pitcher himself.

Even today, the 'pen wasn't much mightier. After Floyd's strong seven, Worrell came in for the 8th and gave up two hard-hit singles--though an inexplicable baserunning blunder resulting in a pop out/double play erased one of them. Pedro Liriano, making his first appearance of the season, gave up three runs in the 9th, though only one was earned. For the year, the bullpenners have now allowed 13 earned runs in 14 frames.

Will that keep up? No, but then it's not likely the starters will maintain a collective ERA well under 3, either. After five games--two wins powered by an offense we all expected to produce, and three painful losses crafted by a bullpen that previously was considered a strength--I'm trying to keep Joe Sheehan's sensible admonition in mind.