Five reasons for Phillies fans to have angst

1 The Cardinals: You don't want to face Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia in a short series. The Cardinals are closing the gap on the Braves for the wild card, although they had a terrible loss yesterday. St. Louis hosts the Cubs and then finishes at Houston, the team with the worst record in baseball.

2 Injuries: The injury report has played out like a game of hokeypokey this season. Put your right knee in, take your right knee out (Chase Utley), left foot (Ryan Howard), left knee (Hunter Pence), abdominal (Placido Polanco), groin (Jimmy Rollins) - and those are just the current nicks and bruises. The Phillies have one of the oldest lineups in the National League, so the rash of injuries they have endured over the last 2 years is not entirely unexpected. But Utley's power numbers are notably down, Rollins is coming off a stretch on the disabled list, and Howard has not played since Saturday.

3 Offense: Even before clinching, the Phillies had not scored more than three runs in eight straight games.

4 Bullpen: They were so dominant for so long, but Antonio Bastardo and Mike Stutes have both struggled and Brad Lidge continues his success-on-highwire act.

5 The Eagles don't play until Sunday: Hey, we're Philadelphians. Worry is the white frosting inside our chocolate Tastykake selves. We know how good we have had it all year. Heck, we know how good we've had it for 4 years. Which is why we're wringing our hands.

For Paul Hagen's take on the Phillies recent slump, click here.