Leave it to old Chuck to sum up this team better than any of us who do so for a living. Because that's exactly how it has looked at times this season - and, to be honest, last season, too. They were miserably bad with runners in scoring position for most of the second half of this season.
And yet, "This team's fight is just ridiculous," Scott Eyre said after the Phillies answered Colorado's three-run eighth inning with a three-run ninth inning of their own to advance Monday.
"A lot of teams could have easily given up knowing they could have gone home and closed it out," Ryan Howard said. "But that's just been this team's character all year."
Said Manuel: "I look at them sometimes, and I've said this over the last 2 or 3 years: Without a doubt all my years in baseball, the best attitude, the best chemistry I've ever seen on a team that I've ever been on. I've said that over and over again."
"We have belief," Jimmy Rollins said. "And belief goes further than momentum."
Believe this: The Dodgers led the National League this season in walkoff victories, with 12. The Phillies' Brad Lidge blew nine of 15 one-run save opportunities. The Dodgers were 20-8 in one-run games at Dodger Stadium during the regular season and have the kind of well-defined bullpen that made late rallies relevant for the Phillies a year ago.
Throughout this season, the Phillies had a maddening tendency to sit on the slimmest of leads, which made it very, very difficult for their struggling closer to find his footing.
It also made it difficult to watch the four games against the Rockies, three of which were decided by a single run.
But all together now: Watching them has never been easy.
That's the fun of it. Right?
Right???
