You gotta...bereave?

I'd like to have something witty to say about the topic but the truth is it really just makes me queasy. This Phillies team, to put it quite simply, is not a playoff team. And it's not for lack of pitching staff, because this pitching staff is still better than it was a year ago, despite today's 8th inning meltdown -- which, by the way, is as easily fixed as Charlie accepting the fact that Durbin NEVER strands inherited runners. He's had a great year, and while he may be tiring, the truth of his recent woes is that he's been asked to be this bullpen's fire extinguisher and he's got an arm full of kerosene. Either get Brett out of the game, or at least go to the pen before the runner is on 3rd, but Durbin just doesn't react well to being brought in with his back against the wall. -- and it's not for lack of offensive talent, because even in what has been considered a significantly "down" year for the Phillies offense, they lead the NL in homers and rank among the league leaders in runs scored. This team will fall short, and in fact really has already sealed that fate with 16 games to play, because they lack the heart which their 2007 counterparts practically OD'd on. I'm pretty sure his name was Aaron Rowand, and I know he would never have let them spend so long going through the motions the way they have lately. They put on a damn good facade for the most part this year, but the grit just isn't there. The most glaring instances of it have been in games like the one they played Tuesday against the Marlins. Take a team's best shot square on the chin, get back up, and knock them the fuck out. That was the way of the 2007 Phillies, the team we saw for a couple hours about 2 weeks ago against the Mets. But in 2008, when the other team gets up from the Phils' best shot, when things inevitably get intense and the baseball suddenly gets played at a much higher level than what leads to the sorts of slugfests in question, the Phillies fold like a house of cards. They abandon the one play at a time mentality which allows them to fight out of a 9-1 deficit and start trying to do it all at once. And inevitably, fail miserably. Not miserably for them, they've maintained an impressive malaise throughout both the highs and lows of this infinitely compelling season, but miserably for those of us who have come to know it best. I never expected to wonder about the heart of this group of guys again, but I guess that's what happens when a team loses the only champion among its ranks, it loses the mentality of a championship ballclub. My only real hope, and there's documented proof of it a few times on this here blog, is that the one hallmark of the 2008 Phils is that every time they look ready to phulphill my profesy of a phade, they beat someone better than them.