The Phour Horsemen

Last night, I had a nightmare that Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies. And he and Oswalt and Hamels and Halladay turned into manbearpigs and chased me down and then my shotgun jammed and they stood there laughing and dismembering me and when I woke up I wiped my hand across my forehead and thanked God it was only a dream.

And then I turned on the internets. And my top stopped spinning.

So there you have it. The Philadelphia Phillies have assembled what they like to call the Phantastic Phour, but should more properly be referred to as the Phour Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Next year, the Braves get to face them through the course of 19 head-to-head matchups. Yes, of course on occasion we'll draw whatever piece of flotsam they toss in to complete the rotation, but even the 2 or 3 games we have against this fifth Beatle will not be enough to counteract the absolute maelstrom that will be battling through their pitching staff.

On paper this team looks like it has a chance to win 120 games. Heck, the Phillies could throw out an outfield of Francouer, Melky, and the present-day Canseco and they'd still win the division by at least 15 games.

But let's not anoint them as champs just yet. The '97 Braves fielded a rotation where Denny Neagle had the worst ERA+ that year, which should be expected, but it was 144, which should not. The '98 Braves had 5 members of their rotation with at least 15 wins each. If you're keeping count, that's all of them. That rotation averaged a 144 ERA+. These are absurd, historical numbers. And, sadly, they weren't enough to win the Series.

That was three hall-of-famers in their absolute prime. The Phillies' starters are terrific, yes. But half of them aren't in their prime and the other half are not hall-of-famers.

Also, this is baseball. Sometimes you run into blind men like Eric Gregg, who misread the rules and thought the strike zone covered the plate and both batters' boxes. Or you run into a lightning-in-a-bottle team like the Giants. You just never know.

Don't get me wrong. The Phillies had an outstanding rotation yesterday. And then they went and signed the best free agent pitcher in the game. Without understating the metaphor in the slightest bit, imagine that Hitler had somehow gotten his hands on a nuclear weapon. This is exactly like that. It's really bad news for everybody else in baseball.

But this is baseball. That's why we play the games. And we shall never surrender.

(Storms the beach at Penn's Landing).