Time for some much needed optimism

After Randy Johnson struck out the first six Phillies he faced, I rested my head down on my pillow and started to dose off. After a day of work, I was far too exhausted to sit through another offensive-less game by our "powerhouse" baseball club. And by luck, fate or the grace of God, I woke up just as Burrell was getting walked in the 7th inning. The score was 3-0 and the Diamondbacks were heading to their bullpen. Still a little sleepy and out of it, I hear that Ryan Howard is coming in to pinch hit...

Yesterday, the horrible pessimist in me asked the question "Why are we Phillies fans?" Well the answer became clear again last night in the form of Harry Kalas with the help of Howard.

Bases loaded with nobody out. LONG DRIVE TO DEEP RIGHT FIELD. GRAND SLAM HOMERUN, RYAN HOWARD!!

Now I'm not going to declare that all is good in the hood of Phillies baseball, but how many times do we get to be optimistic? So lets look back at this previous series and pick out the good:

• Starting pitching:
  
• Garcia went six strong giving up 2 runs. He could have went more but was pulled for a pinch hitter
• Eaton went seven innings and gave up 3 runs. It was his second best start of the season and brought his ERA waaay down to 7.43!!
• Moyer did his thing. 7+ innings giving up 3 or less runs. What more can we ask?
• Brett Myers
• He only got in one game but recorded 6 outs for his 3rd save in as many tries. Do we finally have a reliable closer?
• Uhhh...
• Wow, I think that's it.

The Phillies have experienced their share of April showers and could be in line for another June Swoon, so what do the Phillies have to do to ensure that this won't be a Gay May?

13 of the next 19 games will be played in the friendly (sometimes) confines of Citizens Bank Park. And no matter how much we verbally kill Gordon and Madson, they are very big parts of our bullpen. If the Phillies can hover around .500 until they get back and help to stabilize the relief corps, we should still be okay. And here are where the big IFs come into play.

• IF Ryan Madson comes back healthy and continues to pitch the way he had before he went on the DL, we have a decent 7th inning guy to compliment Geary
• IF Tom Gordon can come back and not completely suck, we may have a set-up man
• IF the rest was good for Ryan Howard and he learns how to make contact again, we may have our slugger back
• IF Eaton shows that he isn't as bad as 8.18 and can hover around 5.00, we may have a chance to win when he pitches
• IF Garcia was treating April like a Spring Training and can get us into the 7th inning on a regular basis, we won't cry every time Gio Gonzalez is mentioned
• IF Pat Burrell stops playing this practical joke on Philadelphia and gets his power stroke back, we may finally get some more homeruns on this team
• And the biggest IF of all: IF Manuel gets kidnapped by pirates and taken away to some mysterious island off the coast of Africa, we may win a few more games...if only

So for the month of May, I won't be losing sleep over a record that is .500 or even sub-.500. It is asking a lot of any fan (especially Phillies phans) to remain optimistic and patient in the face of hardship, but if we are still somewhere in it when we get this team healthy again...we still got a shot.