No Unlikely Heroes

The Phillies advanced to the NLCS Tuesday night in true Philly fashion: by making the whole town cower in fear, waiting until the last minute, then pulling ahead by a margin so minuscule it could have easily been wiped out in the bottom of the 9th. Tonight our Fightin's square off against the Dodgers at 8:07 p.m for Game One of the series. If the last few games serve as any indication, you might want to keep a barf bag nearby. (Note to the Phillies: It's not exciting when the wins come down to the wire, it's just nerve-wracking. Stop doing that and get big leads early instead. Then keep them. Please and thank you.)

Last Wednesday, Daily News staffers selected Ben Francisco, Pedro Feliz, Jayson Werth, and Carlos Ruiz as their choices to make unexpected, yet substantial, post-season contributions. Well, Daily News, with all due respect, we beg to differ. Here at Phillyist, we don't really think the phrase "unlikely hero" should apply to anyone on this team. In other words, we think you're wrong. Here's why:

First of all, there's some flawed logic involved in trying to predict "unlikely heroes." It's a simple contradiction of terms. If you're able to predict that something will happen, it's inherently "likely," is it not? Let's look at Tuesday's game. Ryan Howard was/is certainly an expected hero. As clean-up hitter, his job is to double and send Victorino and Utley home. But Jayson Werth had just as many RBIs in that game as Howard. In fact, he has two homers in the post season so far; two more than Ryan Howard. And have we already forgotten Werth's 99 RBIs in the regular season? So why should his clutch contribution come as surprise to anyone? How many times does the man need to come through before he becomes "likely" to do so? Sorry, but by now we should all pretty much expect Werth to save the day just as much as we would anyone else.

Let's go for another example: Brad Lidge. Where last year we depended on his Old-Faithful-like consistency, his 11 blown saves this season have shaken our faith. Would Brad Lidge be an unlikely hero if he rallies to have a perfect run through the playoffs just because he wasn't able to be perfect throughout the regular season this year? No. Absurd. Absolutely not. We know he can close a crucial game because we've seen him do it. So far this post-season he's come through. We have to hold out hope that he can do it again.

As for Pedro Feliz and Carlos Ruiz, they don't have World Championship rings for no reason. And Ben Francisco has every chance in the world to be this year's Matt Stairs. Unless Matt Stairs is this year's Matt Stairs.

We are the World Champions. Billboards say so. The trophy in the front office and the rings on the fingers say so. And the shirts on the backs of the fans say so. It happened because our team (as a whole) was the strongest. In order for the Phillies to get back to the World Series again everyone has perform just as before. The basic tenet for winning at any sport is to generate enough offense to gain the lead and play tight enough defense to keep it. If one player has an off day, someone else has to step up. Every single person on the Phils' roster is there for a reason: because Charlie Manuel believes they can contribute to a win. And although we may bitch and moan like a typical fan whenever anything goes wrong, that's just passion for the team talking. Deep down we know Charlie's a baseball-managing genius who can lead us to victory. He certainly won't be surprised if any one of his players pull out that miracle run. And neither should we.