New York Mets

When Vance Worley woke up Tuesday at 1:51 p.m. in his South Jersey hotel room that doubles as home during this baseball season, he put his feet on the floor. Almost instantaneously, the room began shaking. There must be some fun stuff going on next door, Worley thought at first. But then the room swayed and the 23-year-old from Sacramento, Calif., knew what was happening - barring some crazy hallucination from sleeping in so late. "Great way to start the day," the Phillies righthander said.

GIO GONZALEZ earned his big league-leading 19th victory and the visiting Washington Nationals backed him with three home runs to beat the listless New York Mets, 5-1, Monday night. Kurt Suzuki put the Nationals ahead with a home run in the third inning right after catcher Kelly Shoppach dropped his foul popup for an error. Four batters later Ryan Zimmerman launched a two-run shot, and Ian Desmond added a two-run drive in the fourth. That was plenty for Gonzalez (19-7) and the team with the best record in the majors.

NEW YORK - Cole Hamels can only hope another terrible start will lead to another terrific finish. Hamels began the second half of the season Saturday the same way he started the first half: scuffling through a short outing in a lopsided loss to the New York Mets. This time, Hamels lasted just 41/3 innings, allowing eight hits and seven runs in an 11-2 loss to the Mets before 41,166 spectators at Citi Field. It was Hamels' worst work since his first start this season, when he allowed six runs in 22/3 innings in a 7-1 loss to the Mets on April 5 in Citizens Bank Park.

IT HAD TO have been a strange feeling for Cole Hamels to look up at the eighth inning of Sunday's game with the New York Mets and see a big crooked number in the scoring column for the Phillies. Five runs in an inning? For the past two seasons, Hamels would have been overjoyed to get five runs from the Phillies in a game that he had started. For whatever reason, Hamels has been the poster guy for pitchers who suffer from a lack of run support. Last season, Hamels allowed two earned runs or fewer in 21 of his 31 starts (68 percent)

After nine games, we can definitively say this about the 2012 Phillies: It could go either way. It went their way on Sunday at Citizens Bank Park. After they tried for six innings to single the New York Mets and their own manager to death, the Phillies finally mixed in three doubles and seven runs during their final two at-bats and avoided a three-game sweep with an 8-2 win that sent them on a 10-game West Coast trip with a 4-5 record. That's not the start they were hoping for, and one 14-hit afternoon against the Mets is not going to ease the offensive concerns that were in place when the team left spring training.

NEW YORK - Less than a week ago, as the Phillies embarked on this seven-game road trip through Houston and New York, manager Charlie Manuel declared that his team was "dead in" the middle of the National League race for the second wild card. After losing three of four to the Astros, the declaration was altered to "we're not dead yet. " It seems inevitable that some team is going to eventually serve as the anvil that crushes the Phillies' faded playoff hopes. Some would argue that is exactly what the Astros did over the weekend.

This should have been a nice story about how Kyle Kendrick's resurgence continued with a fourth straight outstanding start. This could have been a happy account of Kevin Frandsen's continued success as the Phillies' fill-in third baseman. Instead, the Phillies' 3-2 victory that allowed them to salvage the final game of their series with the New York Mets will most be remembered for the benching of shortstop Jimmy Rollins. It was, in fact, the subject that dominated manager Charlie Manuel's postgame news conference.

NEW YORK - Gary Carter was nicknamed "Kid" for good reason. His smile, bubbly personality and eagerness to excel on a ball field made him a joy to watch at the plate and behind it. Even his Hall of Fame bronze plaque at Cooperstown shows him with a toothy grin - the Kid forever. The star catcher, whose single for the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series touched off one of the most improbable rallies in baseball, died Thursday. He was 57. Mr. Carter was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last May, two weeks after finishing his second season as coach at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

THE PHILLIES have the fifth-highest value among Major League Baseball franchises, according to Forbes magazine, which estimates their worth at $893 million. Forbes estimated the New York Yankees have the highest value for the 16th straight year at $2.3 billion, up from last year's $1.85 billion. It also reported that the average for an MLB team increased by 23 percent in the last year to $744 million. The Los Angeles Dodgers are second at $1.62 billion, nearly $400 million below the price paid for the team last May when a group headed by Mark Walter, Stan Kasten and Magic Johnson bought the franchise from Frank McCourt.

When Vance Worley woke up Tuesday at 1:51 p.m. in his South Jersey hotel room that doubles as home during this baseball season, he put his feet on the floor. Almost instantaneously, the room began shaking. There must be some fun stuff going on next door , Worley thought at first. But then the room swayed and the 23-year-old from Sacramento, Calif., knew what was happening - barring some crazy hallucination from sleeping in so late. "That's different," the Phillies righthander said.