So, how does it feel to actually be the team to beat?
"It feels like spring training," Rollins joked.
But they know they've won nothing yet.
"It's not Sunday," reliever Tom Gordon said. "It's just Saturday. We just need to concentrate on that and see what happens. And hopefully everything goes well for us. If we put ourselves in position to be winners [today], I think it will get even better. But we have to wait until we get there. When you see that plastic up [to cover the clubhouse lockers for a celebration], then you'll know what time it is."
It has been said before, but it is worth repeating for fans and a franchise that has not lived October baseball since 1993: No team in baseball history has blown a seven-game lead with 17 games to play.
The Mets could be the first.
The Phillies are 12-3 since they trailed the Mets by seven on Sept. 12.
The Mets are 4-11.
As the headline screamed in yesterday's New York Post: "Paging Dr. Heimlich."
Meanwhile, the Phillies couldn't be looser. Manager Charlie Manuel met with reporters in the Phillies' dugout before the game, and the first words out of his mouth were: "What do you want me to say? Today is big?"
He laughed.
It seems he has been asked that question every day by somebody for the last, oh, two months.
Yes, it was big.
This afternoon's game is even bigger.
But to put themselves in that position, they had to take care of business last night.
Cole Hamels did that.
He put in one of the team's best pitching performances of the season. He threw eight shutout innings, allowing just six hits and one walk while striking out 13. Manuel said Wednesday that Hamels would not throw 115 pitches. He threw 116, two short of a career-high 118.
" 'You're not on a pitch count. Go after them,' " Hamels said Manuel told him.
But for a while, it looked as if Nationals righthander Tim Redding would match Hamels. Redding allowed just two hits and one walk through four innings.
