Phils putting up some ugly numbers

If nothing else, baseball is a game of numbers.

Perhaps more so than any other sport, baseball offers a daily cornucopia of numbers that reach into every aspect of the sport.

Yesterday, while sitting on the deck listening to the final, agonizing outs of another Philllies loss, I was struck by some of those numbers.

The Phils go into the All-Star break this year saddled with 50 losses.

Last year they lost 60 games all season.

That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this sorry season.

The Phillies are 14 games behind the first-place Washington Nationals, 18 back in the loss column.

They are 13 games under .500.

They’ve lost 4 in a row, all at home.

They’ve lost 10 of their last 11.

They’ve now won all of 1 game since Chase Utley returned to the lineup; none since Ryan Howard showed up Friday night.

Cliff Lee has 1 win. Not for this week or this month - all season.

You don’t argue with those kinds of numbers.

Sure, there is still half a season remaining on the schedule. Would anyone care to make the argument that the Phillies are playing for anything than positioning on next year’s roster?

I’d like to believe.

The numbers tell me it isn’t going to happen.

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