Bob Ford: Is this the year the Phils' luck runs out?

There are only two days on the crowded yearly calendar when American sports fans are required by guarantee to go cold turkey from their daily obsessions for at least one revolution of the earth.

The first was celebrated Monday, the day before the major-league All-Star Game, and the other is Wednesday, the day after the game. On every other day of the year, it is possible, almost unavoidable, that something will be going on among the four major sports, some regular-season or exhibition or postseason game. If you've got the right television hookup and the proper lack of anything better to do, big-time sports can be your constant friend.

But not Wednesday. So let's take this moment's rest - put down the damn remote! - gather a deep breath, and pause to consider exactly what to make of the Phillies this season.

The schedule resumes with a rush Thursday, and the Phils are expected to play 18 straight games before their next day off. That will shove baseball past the non-waiver trade deadline of July 31 and quickly force the issue of what will become of the Phillies.

At their best, despite some inconsistent starting pitching and a terrifyingly unreliable bullpen, the Phillies are plenty good enough to make the playoffs and do well once they get there. A third straight league championship, which hasn't been accomplished by any NL team since 1944, is within their capabilities.

What it will come down to, however, is whether they are once again lucky enough to get that outcome, and no championship in any sport, at any level, is gained without a serious dollop of good fortune.

So far this season, the Phillies haven't been very lucky - particularly with injuries - but neither have they been cursed any more than during the early months of the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

In 2008, Shane Victorino, Jimmy Rollins and Jayson Werth spent time on the disabled list and starter Brett Myers was optioned to the minor leagues, all before the all-star break. Afterward, with the exception of a brief injury to Pedro Feliz and some minor issues, the Phils got healthy and got hot. The organization added Joe Blanton, Scott Eyre and Matt Stairs for the stretch run, and won a World Series.

In 2009, Carlos Ruiz, Brad Lidge, Raul Ibanez, Myers and Eyre were on the disabled list before the break, and, to some extent, Lidge and Ibanez never fully recovered from what was ailing them. Still, there were no major injuries or time lost in the second half of the season, the team traded for Cliff Lee and took a chance on Pedro Martinez, and along came another World Series appearance.

If the same good luck follows the Phillies this season - a second half of the schedule that is relatively free of major problems - there's no reason the Phillies can't finish up just as they have before. At the all-star break in 2008, they were playing .542 baseball. Last season, it was .558. This season, with a 47-40 record, the Phils are playing .540 baseball. There's not that much difference there, and no reason that some maneuvering by general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. can't give them yet another trade-deadline boost.

What the front office has to decide is whether, deep down, this feels like another lucky year. The organizational philosophy, as demonstrated when Lee was traded to Seattle, is that it is unwise to push all the chips onto one season and let a roulette spin determine if that plunge is disastrous.

And it is not a choice as simple as merely being a "buyer" or a "seller" at the end of this month. Both approaches can be done either cautiously or enthusiastically and with neither a reliable predictor of results. In 2006, Pat Gillick thought he was waving a white flag on the team's chances when he traded Bobby Abreu, Cory Lidle and David Bell ahead of the deadline, but the Phillies - six games under .500 on July 31 - played .620 ball the rest of the way and finished just three games out of the wild-card spot.

Building on that surprising finish, instead of rebuilding from the ashes of it, the team made the postseason the following season after a 14-year hiatus, and has returned each season since.

So which will it be - more of the same, or the year in which the luck runs out?

Already, there are disquieting signs. Chase Utley's thumb surgery will keep him out of the lineup well into August, if the doctors are correct, and nearly into September if the most conservative predictions are accurate. Even for a deep offensive team like the Phillies, that's a major loss in crunch time, unlike what they experienced in 2008 or 2009.

With Utley, the offense has been off its previous pace, scoring about 30 fewer runs than at a similar juncture last season. That's primarily due to the nearly 60 games missed by Rollins and to a significant production slide from Ibanez. The offense is churning out 4.7 runs per game, while the pitching and defense are allowing 4.2 runs per game. That's a narrow rope to dance along for the next 10 weeks without adding a net of better pitching or rejuvenated power.

Of course, management might decide the fall will come regardless and the better option is to keep the team's prospects, refuse expensive rentals of soon-to-be free agents, and consider moving a short-timer such as Werth for the good of next season.

It's not an easy call, regardless of how it looks at home in front of your suddenly empty TV screen. Wednesday is the last day for that idle reflection, though. The sports world will resume its endless spin cycle Thursday, and the next stop is either the baseball postseason or the NFL exhibition season. The Phillies haven't let us know which yet.

Thursday at

8:05 p.m.

TV: MYPHL17