Magic Number Shrinking... Phillies staying afloat towards playoffs

Written by Mike Mariano | 28 September 2009

3 is the magic number.  Any amount of Phillies wins or Braves losses equally that total will put the Phillies into the playoffs for the third consecutive season.  It's a wonderful thing.  Mets fans everywhere are praying that the Phillies will collapse and give them something to cheer for this season.  The Mets season may be a waste of a large payroll and a year of Wright and Reyes' primes, however if the Phillies collapsed down the stretch I have to assume that Mets fans would take some solice in the moral victory.  A big difference however would be that the Mets wouldn't be jumping us down the stretch it would be the Braves and Mets fans hate the Braves very much also.  There can be no happiness in Mets Nation.

Bullpen woes have continued (Tyler Walker meet Ryan Braun), however on Sunday the Phillies won the game doing everything that they've lacked lately.  There was one run from home runs for your Phightins and the bullpen held the Brewers scoreless over 3.2 innings.  That's what I'm talking about.  Condrey, Escalona, Durbin, & Madson combined to shut it down and pick up the save.  Things got a little hairy in the ninth in a one run game with the winning run up, but Madson took care of business.

In playoff race news, the Braves continue to win seemingly every game, however they have a mountainous task to try and jump the Phillies.  It's a classic case of too little, too late.  If the season ended today, the Phillies take on the Rockies, a team that the Phillies beat 4-2 in the season series.  That could easily change between now and the final seven games, who knows.  A win is a win is a win and the Phillies only need 3 more before we can rest easy and worry about the playoffs.