Philadelphia Phillies:

Racing their way to the top of the NL East

The Philadelphia Phillies have a buzz around them that they haven’t had in quite a while. After a couple of off-season moves fans feel this might be the year that the Phillies make it back the World Series and bring home another championship trophy. All time the Phillies have won five pennants and one World Series championship. The last time the Phills were in the World Series was in 1993 and they faced off against the Toronto Blue Jays and fell to them in six games. The moment that will be most remembered about that series is when Joe Carter hit a home run off of closer Mitch Williams in the bottom of the 9th to win the game and finish the series. That was also the last time the Phillies qualified for postseason play. Last season the Phillies finished in third the NL East behind the Atlanta Braves and the eventual World Series champion Florida Marlins. The Phillies were leading the Wild Card race coming down the last week and a half but lost seven of their last eight games and finished five games back of the Marlins.

During the off-season the Phillies made a few big moves as they looked to knock the Atlanta Braves off their 12 year run of winning the NL East. They filled their biggest need, a closer, with one of the blockbuster trades of the off-season. The Phills traded pitcher Brandon Duckworth and two minor league pitchers to Houston for All-star closer Billy Wagner. They also traded pitcher Carlos Silva infielder Nick Punto and a player to be named later to Minnesota for south paw pitcher Eric Milton. The team also picked up the option to keep fiery manager Larry Bowa with the club.

When opposing managers look at the Philadelphia lineup they see a lineup that has a lot of pop in the 3-4-5 spots. They are Bobby Abreu, first baseman Jim Thome, and left fielder Pat “the bat” Burrell. The three combined to hit 88 home runs and drive in 296 runs last year. Thome has averaged 40 home runs 111 RBI and 104 runs per season from 1996-2003.

The starting pitching is one of the Phillies strengths that will help them win a good number of games. In 2003, the team had a respectable 4.04 staff ERA which ranked them 8th in the National League. The ace of the staff is right hander Kevin Millwood. He is joined by Eric Milton, Randy Wolf, Vicente Padilla, and Brett Myers. In the bullpen, Billy Wagner is the guy the Phills will trust to close out the 9th.

The Philles welcome all visiting teams to Citizens Bank Park. The doors opened to the new ballpark this year. The biggest change is that the Phillies will be playing on natural grass for the first time since before they moved into Veteran’s Stadium in 1971. This 43,500 seat stadium is a welcome change from the Vet which was ranked 28th out of 30 of all the Major League Baseball stadiums by espn.com’s “Page 2.”

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