Better to be lucky than good?

"That's it boys, we only get Hawaiian pizza for the postgame from now on. Shane has spoken."

Here is a look at what we learned from the “important” weekend series versus the Ginas (San Francisco not New York)

1. This is becoming one of the most intense rivalries in, not only the National League, but in Major League Baseball. If the Ginas keep acting like a bunch of crybabies every time they are losing by more than a couple of runs than these series could become all out wars. If Brian Wilson ever comes up to the plate, I hope Madson drills a fastball right between his legs (I know that really doesn’t have much to do with this part, but I just can’t stand that bearded asshole). And, if this becomes another postseason meeting, look for more exciting fireworks like this to keep happening.
2.  As the Ginas can attest to from last year in the playoffs, it may sometimes be better to be lucky than good. Last year, we can all be completely honest when we say, we were the better team and we should have won the World Series. However, Cody Ross got hot at the right time and our bats just got lost in a deep, dark cave never to return. This weekend was a similar occurrence. The Phillies did pound the 3^rd and 4^th pitchers, but look at the last two games of the series. In the 3^rd game, Cain pitched very well and could have come away with the win if they weren’t forced to play with a Single-A catcher for the remainder of the season.  The game could have gone into extras where it would have been anybody’s game. Finally, the last game of the series was a classic game for San Fran, hang on by a thread due to some great pitching and some situational hitting. If this were the playoffs, we are looking at a 2-2 series and it is still anybody’s to win. We did play extremely well, but still it could have gone very differently if Whiteside could catch a baseball.
3. This series in all honestly meant absolutely nothing. It was a lot of fun to talk about and see how both teams stacked up, but when it gets to October, we don’t care if we swept the Giants in the regular season or got swept by them. In October, the real baseball is played and the games really matter. For the fans that jump up and down and claim that this is the most amazing thing ever, get over it. This was just another series that we won, like we did so many other times this year and last year, but if this year ends the same way last year did, we spent a lot of money for nothing.

On a side note, Shane Victorino is by far the heart of the Phillies. There are a lot of titles to give out: Jimmy is the Catalyst, Howard is the Big Piece, Chase is the Unquestioned Leader, but Shane is the Heart.  A clear example of this was the pitch that Ramon Ramirez threw at Shane. Remember when Hiroki Kuroda did the same thing? When teams have a problem with the Phillies, they go after one man and one man only, His Airness, the Flyin Hawaiian, Shane Victorino. They do this because he is the heart of the team, a juice guy that is connected with every member of the team.  (This was something that we learned this weekend also, but it wasn’t team wide, it was a solo person so we made it a side note instead of a number.)

These are a couple of the most important things that we learned this weekend. Let's hope that in the postseason, if we face the Giants yet again for the NL Crown, that we are just as lucky then as we were this weekend, or just as good, whatever gets us the Pennant.