This team can and should win the East. But it is a one-take team. One major setback and the Phillies are out of film.
The reality of the economic handcuffs slapped on Pat when he was hired to replace Ed Wade by the limited partnership that runs baseball's Comfort Inn has never been any clearer than it was last Thursday. The trade deadline passed and all the Phillies had to show for the month of rumor, conjecture and wild surmise was a sideways move. Gillick acquired Oakland's Joe Blanton in hopes the hulking righthander could become what an expensive bust named Adam Eaton failed to be.
It was a sidestep worthy of Fred Astaire . . .
With seventh-inning guys J.C. Romero and Ryan Madson ping-ponging in disabled Tom Gordon's setup role, there was a hot rumor Gillick would acquire Ron Mahay from the Royals to be an urgently needed lefthander.
They brought up J.A. Happ a second time. Nobody can figure to do what. After two solid starts during Brett Myers' therapeutic odyssey through three minor league levels, the 6-6 Happ is back, but without anything close to a defined role. Anybody else hear the tick-tick-tick of the annual Cole Hamels DL stay fast approaching?
And the new situational lefty is not accomplished veteran Mahay. It's a 31-year-old minor league veteran with more destination stickers on his luggage than a circus juggler. Les Walrond did have 17 strikeouts in an IronPigs shutout, so the guy is worth a few looks before Rudy Seanez comes off the 15-day.
