Chokedown 2008: The Sequel

If you loved the 2007 baseball season -- and frankly, Phillies Fan adored it, at least the regular season part -- you're also loving 2008. The Phillies pulled off yet another gut-check win tonight in Atlanta, recovering from a 7-4 seventh inning deficit and then surviving a shaky from Brad Lidge for an 8-7 win.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Mets were discovering, yet again, how hard it is to play baseball with both hands around your neck. Nine scoreless innings later against one of the worst teams in MLB, the Mets relinquished first place in the division, and only the free-falling Brewers are keeping them in the wild-card.

With a dozen games left to go, the schedule seems to break well for the Mets, who get the Nationals and Braves, while the Phils have the Braves, then the Marlins, their personal torture device. The Brewers are on the road in Chicago and then Cincinnati. But right now, they aren't playing the schedule; they are playing themselves... and losing, Meanwhile, the Phillies play to packed houses every night, have a couple of surging aces in Myers and Hamels, and an offense that frequently gets off the mat from big deficits.

I'm not a Phillies or a Mets Fan, per se; I'm a blogger that likes lay-up stories like this to help fill the word hole. And for that, I'd like to thank all three teams for making things easy on me, especially in a year where my A's sold the season for Matt Murton, and Red Sox Fan is looking like they are in line for way too much happiness (again). Moving on...