Cole Hamels

SAN FRANCISCO - The Phillies flew here to escape the noise, the grisly sights from a weekend of baseball at home and the burden of a disabled ace. Their first task was to conquer the powerful Giants, a team with six straight wins and Madison Bumgarner, owner of a 1.55 ERA, on the mound. For one night, the Phillies eased the pain of a disappointing start to 2013 with one of the more rounded efforts in the season's first 33 games. They won, 6-2, Monday night, and it was never in question because of Cliff Lee and Michael Young, two players who experienced such heartbreak at this ballpark.

SAN FRANCISCO - Roy Halladay found refuge on the back of a plane. "I didn't get the opportunity to speak to Roy," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said from the visiting dugout at AT & T Park yesterday. "I got up and went back to look for him, but he was asleep. I didn't want to wake him up. " After pitching through one of the worst starts of his career, and then acknowledging his arm wasn't right afterward, Halladay slept on the team's charter flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco on Sunday.

THE WORDS that Cliff Lee spoke on Wednesday night in Cleveland were borne of frustration, something that Charlie Manuel acknowledged as he sat in the dugout before last night's game against the Miami Marlins. The manager, who prides himself on his abilities as a human thermometer, insisted that he has yet to sense any friction between the team's pitchers and the hitters, despite the inability of the latter party to provide its counterpart with much in the way of breathing room over the first month of the season.

CLEVELAND - Cliff Lee arrived for the first time as a visiting player in the city where he forged one of the best lefthanded arms in the game. He gazed at an empty Progressive Field, a building he had not seen in four years, since the Indians dealt him to Philadelphia, and shrugged. "I was expecting it to be different," Lee said, "but it looks a lot the same. " That drum in the left-field bleachers was still there. A man pounded it and pounded it Wednesday night during the early innings of a 6-0 Phillies defeat.

Today on PhillyDailyNews.com: Check out this interactive graphic looking back at the three times since 1971 that all four of Philly's pro sports teams have been left out of the playoffs. SO, FOR THOSE keeping score at home, it goes like this: 1971-72, 1991-92, 2012-13. Those are the three seasons that all four pro sports teams in Philadelphia missed the playoffs. As it turns out, we were a year late this time. Twenty years. Twenty-one years. It is a blessing, in some ways, that it happens only once a generation.

NEW YORK - Here's a question: If Carlos Ruiz ever becomes unpopular with fans, how will he know? For example, when that familiar "Oooo" sound emanated from the Citi Field stands as Chooch walked to the plate for the first time yesterday afternoon, can we be certain it came entirely from the large Phillies contingent of the 28,990 attendees, and not some real boos from Mets fans? Yeah, we can. Because right now, at least, Ruiz is far more of a local hero than an opposition villain, even after a 2012 season in which he hit .325 with 16 home runs and 68 runs batted in, in just 114 games.

NEW YORK - Before Ryan Howard smashed a dramatic double, before Chase Utley added another run, before Jimmy Rollins and Laynce Nix touched off the winning rally with two singles, John Buck could not catch a foul pop Sunday. It floated toward the Phillies dugout at Citi Field. Buck ripped off his catcher's mask and looked to the sky. The ball nicked his glove; Nix's at-bat continued. There were two outs in the seventh inning of a 5-1 Phillies win, and Buck could have prevented chaos.

NEW YORK - Suddenly, the idea of the Phillies being a player in this summer's National League playoff race doesn't seem as far-fetched as it did, oh, Friday afternoon. With one game remaining in April, Chooch back behind the plate and the reclaimed Roy Halladay set to pitch tomorrow night, the Phillies could finish the month just a game under .500 and possibly tied with the Washington Nationals. Yeah, sure, it's too early for that kind of scoreboard watching, and yeah, sure, the team they swept over the weekend was the New York Mets, not the Nats and not the Braves.

NEW YORK - Time will tell whether the weekend was a respite against a rotten team or a springboard to a turnaround for the Phillies. Either way, they will take their three-game sweep of the New York Mets, a team that would be even worse off if not for the presence of young pitching star Matt Harvey in their rotation and the rancid Miami Marlins in their division. It can be said with certainty that the Mets are on the road to nowhere this season, even though their charter flight took them to Miami after Sunday's 5-1 loss to the Phillies at Citi Field.

Phillies centerfielder Ben Revere did not start for the first time this season in Thursday's 6-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park. Revere said he has a quadriceps injury that worsened Wednesday during a 5-3 loss to the Pirates. He was asked if he expects to be in the lineup this weekend at Citi Field against the New York Mets. "I think so," Revere said. Manager Charlie Manuel "may give me one more day, but if I tell him I feel pretty good, he may put me in there [on Friday]