But, well, what now? The Phillies have snatched the first game of the series, 6-1. They have come into Yankee Stadium and beaten the great CC Sabathia, just as they beat him last year when he was with Milwaukee. They have taken the homefield advantage. They have wobbled the Yankees and their mystique. Oh, and the team that won Game 1 ended up winning the last six World Series.
There are miles to go, yes, but the Phillies have made a defining statement here. The only question is, why could so few people see it coming?
"It's not too relevant to us what other people think," reliever Brad Lidge was saying after the game, not really wanting to engage in the conversation, saying the exact right thing.
"We know what we can do," he said.
It is easy to play the they-don't-get-no-respect card. That isn't what this is meant to be, not exactly. But the expert analysis leading up to the start of this series has been fascinating and mystifying. Never has the title "defending champion," with all of its connotations of excellence and accomplishment, seemed to mean so little.
The Yankees had only one obvious advantage over the Phillies - closer Mariano Rivera - yet 91 percent of the expert types doing the predicting on ESPN.com concluded that the Yankees would win. In case you were counting, that is 21 out of 23 experts. The Phillies match the Yankees bat-for-bat, they have deeper starting pitching, they have more World Series experience, they have been at least as impressive as the Yankees in the postseason so far. The only difference is Rivera and the fact that the Phillies stumbled at the end of the regular season, which seems like about 9 months ago now, yet they can't seem to get any acknowledgment at all.
