Yong Kim/Staff Photographer
Jimmy Rollins celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the first inning.
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Bob Ford
A Mets-induced mirage, or money in the Bank?
The Mets left town yesterday afternoon the same way they arrived - very quietly - and it would be difficult to blame the Phillies for checking off their rival from the mental list of worries this season.
Maybe New York isn't totally dead in the water, but the propeller definitely isn't turning very well. The Mets scored just three runs in losing all three at Citizens Bank Park and have fallen four games behind the Phillies.
The Phillies, of course, said no such thing, at least not out loud. The dog might only be sleeping, and there is karmic danger in July pronouncements.
"Yeah, they've got a lot of guys injured, but you know what? If we were hurt, they're not going to worry about it," said Shane Victorino. "You try to stomp them. You try to win. We know it's not the team that they can be, but we still have to go out and win, and we took three games like we should have."
The circumstances can change quickly, so you take advantage when you are able. No team knows more about changeable circumstances this season than the Phillies. For various lengths of time, they have lost their No. 2 starting pitcher, their closer, and their first-half most valuable player.
They have ridden the troughs and crests of bad baseball and good. Yesterday's 2-0 victory closed out their fifth sweep of a three-games-or-longer series this season, which seems amazing. They've also been swept three times - which isn't as surprising - and have alternated being unable to lose with being unable to win so many times it is hard to keep up.
The sweep of the Mets could have accomplished several things if you choose to give significance to any random three games in a 162-game season. It grinds a heel into New York, it ends a terrible skid in which the Phillies lost 14 of 18, and it temporarily derails the questions about why they can't win at home.
"Ask me about playing [poorly] at home, and I've given you some kind of answer . . . but then I just started telling the truth: 'Hell, I don't know the answer,' " Charlie Manuel said. "I did say that in order for us to win, we have to have a good home record, and when all is said and done, I think we will."
It is difficult to stick out your chest too far after you get only three hits in a game, but the Phillies did play textbook baseball throughout the series. New York played comic-book baseball - wasting chances, dropping the ball, hurrying through its offensive half-innings as if the taxi meter were running.
The Phils, by comparison, used what they were given well, were crisp in the field, and didn't look like the same team that was forgetting the number of outs and throwing to the wrong base so recently.
"We played very efficiently," Ryan Howard said. "We didn't give up extra outs, didn't make mistakes. Our starters pitched well, our bullpen shut them down, and we had timely hitting. That's everything you want in a baseball game."
"We did the little things right," said Brad Lidge, who struck out the side with scary material in the ninth. "With our talent, if we also do all the little things, we'll be playing very well. You get home, you get in a rhythm like this, and now we've got seven more games here. If we keep playing like this, maybe we can get a little separation" in the standings.
That will require continued hitting at the top of the lineup from Jimmy Rollins, who had a great series. It will require the patched-up starting rotation to hold together and the bullpen to do its job.
In the absence of Raul Ibanez - heading for the start of his rehab assignment in Reading today - the Phils need Howard to pick it up in the middle of the order. He was a silent 0 for 3 yesterday and has just one home run since June 12.
That's a lot that has to go right, but the mood is much brighter than when the Phils dragged themselves home last week. All it took was playing well and playing the Mets.
Now the Phillies will have the chance to prove that the winning streak was more about the former than the latter.
Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com.
Read his blog at http://philly.com/postpatterns
