As the Phillies Come Home, Maintaining the Phaith

No one should confuse what i'm about to say with false hope- the Phillies were a lot better team in the first week of the season than perhaps you think they were. Yes, the bullpen was as terrible as expected, losing two games in which they had a lead in the 8th inning or later, something they did three times last season. Yes, the line-up looked anemic at times, and showed signs that it will struggle this season. If you pretty much gave up hope of seeing improvement in 2016 once the team was at 0-4, you may want to stop reading here.

The Phillies are 2-4 a week into the season. They lead four of their first six games in the 8th inning, which is actually a pretty good sign. Five out of six games they played on the first road trip saw their starting pitcher get into the sixth inning give up three earned runs or less. Ryan Howard, a player for whom there was not a lot of hope before the season, hit a couple of homers this past week. The Phillies won a series against the defending National League Champion New York Mets this weekend- something they did not do in 2015. Jeanmar Gomez at least showed you he can handle the pressure of the 9th inning, and Vince Velasquez looked as good as advertised in his Phillies debut.

None of this is to say that you should put down your deposit on playoff tickets right now. The Phillies line-up was as rough as advertised, and the bullpen had two key pieces (Hernandez and Hinojosa) melt down in the first week. The team is 2-4, and the current roster doesn't figure to be a lot better than it was this past week. I'm not trying to sell you false hope.

I'm saying this though- the starting pitching is fairly decent, and despite the team's deficiencies, they have the ability to get leads for the bullpen into the 8th inning. If they play as well as they did last week, winning 70 games is not out of the question for this Phillies group. Of course, this is the "glass half-full" view of the team. If they blow two leads a week this season, 100 losses is the tip of the iceberg.