Leave it to 47-year-old Jamie Moyer, the team's resident Yoda, to supply the perspective.
"We haven't played well, with or without the injuries," he said plainly in Pittsburgh last Friday night after a soporific loss to the last-place Pirates.
Moyer is dead on. There's more going on with the Phillies right now than can be explained by a simple roll call of the DL.
So Charlie Manuel returned to a well-worn theme last night when asked if it's reasonable to expect a high-priced, veteran roster that has experienced a lot of success over the last 3 years to be as hungry as they've been previously.
"I think that's part of the battle," the manager said after a significant pause. "The game is the No. 1 priority. And if the game is not the No. 1 priority - and I'm not speaking for no one, I'm not taking a punch at nobody – that right there takes away from what we're trying to get to.
"I think that's very common. But, at the same time, that's a part of going back for the fourth time or the fifth time or whatever. You've got to be able to detect what's wrong with your club. And I think that we've got to play better is what it comes down to."
At the major league level, the line between winning and losing can be agonizingly thin. It takes a lot of mental toughness to win a division. A team has to continue to bring it every night to win multiple championships. And that's not easy.
Injuries don't fully explain why Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez finished the first half far below their 2009 numbers or why Ryan Howard's power numbers are a bit off.
