Hot Start

Every year, the Phillies started out slowly. Inevitably, we would end up far behind the Mets or Braves then have to fight back for the rest of the year only to end up just short. However, what has happened this year? At 5-1, the Phillies are already ahead of the division driven forward by an amazing offense that has consistently hammered away at the battered pitching staffs of the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals. Before we get too excited about the Phillies' hot start, remember that we only beat the Nationals and the Astros, and wins are wins. You need to win the games that you are supposed to win, and if you can manage to win half the games that are evenly matched, you should have pretty good success. I tend to fall into the trap of believing that the Phillies should win every game and therefore wonder why they don't always win. Much of this is probably due to the natural variation inherent in baseball. When a given team throws somewhere between 100 and 200 pitches, on a bad day any number of these pitches could be terrible and get hammered 500 feet. However, some days every one of those pitches will hit its intended target just like the Phillies have been doing. Boy I hope that they can keep this up for a while longer to build up a lead on the way to a third straight World Series.
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