We’ll let reader Chris lead things off this morning with the words of a wise man:

Indeed.

Look, the three-game sweep, capped off by a blowout, may not mean anything (the Cardinals swept the Astros and remain four games ahead with 12 to play). But, it’s always nice to unload on the Mets. You know, just place a few dabs of baseball swimmies onto the belly of a sunk ship.

Some fun facts, at the request of one Big Piece:

Titanic and Snapple references wrapped into one: [CSN Philly]

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time in 100 years that the Phils scored eight runs in the first inning of a game on the road. They last did it in 1912 – the year the Titanic went down.

“That’s a Snapple fun fact for everybody,” a grinning Ryan Howard said.

(We’re not sure if he was referring to the team’s first-inning feat or the Titanic reference.)

Smallest crowd ever: [MLB.com]

When asked if he was embarrassed by his team's performance, Collins' answer was short and to the point: "I am."

The Mets' struggles at home have led to dwindling crowds — Thursday's announced attendance of 20,010 was the smallest in Citi Field history — and a thick cloud of frustration at the ballpark that feels like it may seemingly never dissipate.

RUNS: [Phillies.com]

The Phillies fell two runs short of tying the franchise record for most runs scoring in the first inning. They last scored 10 runs in the first inning on July 6, 2009, against the Reds at Citizens Bank Park. It was the first time the Phillies opened a game with six or more hits since June 13, 1980, when they opened with seven consecutive hits against the Padres at Veterans Stadium.

It also was the first time they started a game with their first eight batters reaching base since Aug. 5, 1975, a 13-5 victory over the Cubs at Veterans Stadium.

HITS: [Philly.com]

Mets righthander Jeremy Hefner faced seven batters in the first inning and was pulled before he could record an out as the Phils sent 13 players to the plate in the inning, scoring eight runs en route to a 16-1 win.

The Phillies had 19 singles, nine of them coming in the 33-minute first inning. They also got a grand slam from Ryan Howard in the seven-run ninth inning.

ERRORS: None.

Statisticals:

Juan Pierre, who makes a living hitting baseballs, had five hits last night. He almost didn’t make the team, yet he’s going to finish the season with over 400 at-bats, an above .300 average and 40 steals. I see no reason why the Phils wouldn’t bring him back next year to be the role player we wanted this season.

Ryan Howard hit a grand slam in the ninth inning. He was 2-for-5 with 5 RBIs, and appears to have homered his way out of that funk he was in. Which is the same thing he’s been doing for eight seasons. Get off his (presumably large) dick, haters.

Chase Utley was 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs.

Tyler Cloyd pitched eight innings, gave up one run and three hits. He was the only member of the starting lineup not to have a hit.

Meanwhile, the Braves came to town, awaiting the Phils for a weekend set. Chipper Jones will be honored before tonight’s game. Let’s use this opportunity to show the nation what great fans we are by cheering Larry pre-game… and then booing him mercilessly the rest of the night. It would only be fitting.

Speaking of, Chipper was hazed last night along with Braves rookies. They wore this…

… to Xfinity Live!, where they joined Donovan McNabb in the VIP section:

Awesome.

Look at him and his epic stache: perfect handlebar shape, 12-year growth, cowboy hat, pins(?), winglets for less drag and increased fuel efficiency… oh yeah, that guy voted for Bush.

Of course, it was only a few minutes after the broadcast showed him and Chris Wheeler dissected his appearance when a bunch of guys I never heard of took the lead against Phillippe Aumont, Jake Diekman, Erik Kratz, and Nate Schierholtz, who played crucial roles in the eighth inning as the Phillies continued their search for the #FifthandFinal Wild Card spot. Something looks wrong about that last sentence, but it’s quite accurate. The Astros won, and I’m blaming that Yosemite Sam-looking motherfucker.

Others: The Cardinals won. The Dodgers lost (to the Cardinals). The Wild Card standings look like this:

Here are some random links as me, my fever, and our newly adopted one-year-old Lab-Whippet mix (who Ms. CB and I are trying out for the weekend) get things started this morning. NO, YOU CAN’T CHEW MY ARM RIGHT NOW. I’M BLOG…. 

… 

… make that one link, before I get eaten: KATE MIDDLETON TOPLESS. Let me reword that: KATE MIDDLETON TOPLESS. Actually, I didn’t reword that at all, I just wanted to say it again, to make sure it’s still true. The Royal Family has another nude scandal with KATE MIDDLETON TOPLESS. Morning Wood indeed. NO, DOG, DON’T BITE THAT! 

Btw– you better appreciate the way that Yosemite Sam, mustache guy, dagnabbit pun, Wood, new dog, and Kate Middleton thing came together. That shit takes talent.

I’m a man of my word. You asked, I Wooded.

Good, now that that’s over– let’s get weird. 

The Phillies are three goddamn games back of the #FifthandFinal Wild Card spot. Three. 

I turned 29 on August 15. The Phillies finished that day with a record of a 54-63– 10 games behind the Pirates and Cardinals for the #FifthandFinal Wild Card spot. 10. 

It wasn’t much better on September 1. The Phillies finished that day at 64-69– eight games back of the Cardinals for the #FifthandFinal Wild Card spot. Rookies were getting extended looks, pitchers were being pulled early, and we hated Jimmy Rollins. The End of Days was here, and it wasn't pretty.

Today, the 13th of September, 2012, the Phillies are three games back of the Cardinals for the #FifthandFinal Wild Card spot. They have won seven straight. Seven. The Cardinals and Dodgers have each lost three straight. The Pirates? Six. Only the surging Brewers have kept pace with the Phillies, winning three in a row and seven of their last 10. In fact, only the Brewers (20-7) and A’s (21-5) have better records than the Phillies (18-8) since August 15. That’s right, this heaping pile of slop, discarded to the bin of unwantedness, has the third best record in Major League baseball over the past month. Like my Wood (and yours?), they’re peaking at the perfect time, primed for an October climax… if they can get in.

That was a long way to go for a sex joke, so let’s move on. 

Cliff Lee is back, pissing golden-hued streams of excellence not seen since August of 2011. He’s given up only five earned runs in his past five starts – #FifthandFinal – striking out 32 while allowing only three walks. Yum.

Somehow, Chase Utley has gone from smooth operator to lovable goof. He’s tripping over his feet at second base and Supermaned this ho slide at third base yesterday. 

Jimmy Rollins, who Larry Bowa once said is a “Red Light player,” has his swag on high. He can fucking barrel roll his way down to first base for all I care (yeah, I’ve flipped and flopped). Watch as he blasts this ball yesterday, and surprisingly, T-Mac didn't ruin the call.

Ryan Howard is fat again, and that’s the best kind of Howard.

Kyle Kendrick. That’s all– Kyle Kendrick. 

And in an odd occurrence of the Universe realigning itself, Phillippe Aumont has power-moved his way into the majors and now joins the guy he was traded for, Clifton, in leading the Phils back from the depths of nothingness. I can’t even find a goofy analogy to accurately sum that up.

As noted by AP sports writer Rob Maadi, the Phillies' odds to win the World Series have gone from non-existent to reasonable:

The teams in front of the Phillies: 

The Pirates? Haha. They’re falling fast and – since they’ve been bad for so long I’ve kind of forgotten this – they’re from Pittsburgh. I love fucking (verb) Yinzers. 

The Dodgers? Turmoil. LA Times writers are penning sarcastic pieces like this: [LA Times]

They are trailing 3-2. I can't believe it; our guys looked so good playing without a ball.

STOP THE PRESSES! We have Kemp leading off the ninth followed by the top two players acquired in trades. Your hometown newspaper applauds such promise.

Kemp grounds out to first.

No worries, we have Gonzalez, and who else would you want in a situation like this? OK, so maybe not Gonzalez because he takes a called third strike for the second straight night in the ninth.

But it's not his fault the umps have it in for him as he tells everyone later. And as his hometown newspaper now we'll overlook the crybaby antics.

Ramirez grounds out to end the game, but the important thing here is our team gave it their best. 

Awesome.

The Cardinals? Collapsing. And remember: they’re without Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, Lance Berkman (surgery), and Tony La Russa this year. 

And even the Nationals. They continue to be a Mickey Mouse club, as it’s now revealed that Stephen Strasburg will be available until the end of the season… to pinch hit. 

 The Phillies? They’re peaking at just the right time… and it’s making all of us hard. #FifthandFinal

Of course they did.

That can only be described as an Of Course They Did Game: Any game in which a team, seemingly down and out, perhaps with all of its police buried under the city and a ticking time bomb in its midst, rises up from near certain death to whoop the division leaders. They don’t necessarily do it with skill, rather, it’s fear that propels them.

The Phillies beat the Washington Nationals last night, 8-0. Jimmy Rollins added an inside-the-park home run:

It’s all going to be too-little, too-late from here on out. Which is a sad, because there are still plenty of winners on this team. Around 3 p.m. yesterday, after Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence had presumably left the clubhouse, I had an image in my head of Chase Utley, head down at his locker, ripping apart a glove, seam by seam. 

Email from reader Danny:

This is pretty much what you expected tonight, no?

Miss the wild card by 3.5 games 

I’m not sure of the three and a half games, but, yeah, I expected an effort last night. And of course Cliff Lee finally found his stream, pissing seven innings of lightly-browned excellence, striking out seven and walking one. Of course he did.

Truth is, I’m exhausted from yesterday and last night’s FIFA 12 tournament, so here’s a bunch of nonsense, aggregated:

Congrats to Chuck for winning the 24-person tournament:

Thanks to our friends from Play 'N Trade in Lansdale for hooking us up with systems. They have an awesome selection of used games. Try out any game before you buy it. Check them out here.

From (@NickfrDoylstown):

This one via (@mooseyfbaby28):

MLB.com wants to punch you in the dick:

Reader Dave sends the winner:

As touching as those first Victo Tweets were is how annoying this last one is. Get used to these, because if you thought Victo’s Twitter was bad when he was a Phillie, just wait until he starts tweeting about all things Left Coast. Somewhere, Mike Richards is showing him how it’s done.

Can we get odds on Victorino banging Rihanna, to the evil pleasure of Matt Kemp?

My father and I were sitting in our usual season ticket seats, in the 300 level. At around the seventh inning, with the score 6-2, I suggested that we leave. It’s something we rarely do. I mean, almost never. Back when I was 10, we left a game early and wound up missing an inside-the-park home run and a fight. I would spend the next 17 years of my life chasing those two elusive moments. It wasn’t until last season that I saw an inside-the-parker (courtesy of Chase Utley, detailed here)… and I’ve yet to see a bench-clearing brawl. So, we don’t leave games early.

As we walked out, my dad said, “Why don’t we just watch the game from down below, stand behind home for the final two innings?” 

Fine.

It was around this time that I checked Twitter and saw reports that Pat Burrell was in attendance, seated in section 125. 

That's where we would stand. 

As I scanned the crowd for Bat, I noticed our old friend John Miller, founder of the now deceased PhillySportsDaily.com. I sent him one of those creepy, I see you texts. He and his son left their seats and walked behind the section to join us. The four of us shared a laugh about the Phillies and their chances for a comeback. We spotted Burrell and Jim Fregosi – both scouts – and focused more on their lively (friendly) conversation than the game. 

After the Phillies submitted like a drunken high school girl at a college frat party in the eighth, John and his son said they were going to leave. I turned to my dad and said, “Want to go?”

“No, they’re going to come back and win,” he said without a hint of a smirk.

John and I looked at him, chuckled at his unfounded optimism, and exchanged parting pleasantries.

I kept focusing on Burrell and Fregosi, who were wildly animated in talking about whatever they were talking about (perhaps baseball, perhaps the loins of a coed). When father-in-law beater Francisco Rodriguez took the mound for the ninth, though, they both stopped talking and started writing. It was clear that these Giants and Braves scouts were there to see K-Rod. 

He didn’t fare so well.

Check out Chooch ass slaps at :28

The Phillies came back and won, 7-6. K-Rod imploded, blew his first save ever against the Phillies, and likely disappointed a couple of legendary scouts. Our near Premature Ejectulation for turned into an Aaron Heilman Special or a Stream Out of the Dugout Game thanks to my dad’s glass-half-fullicism. John wasn’t so lucky. He and I had the following text exchange during and immediately following the ninth inning:

Poor guy– he and his son are never going to leave a game early again. 

J-Roll™ swag

Jimmy Rollins warned (and took a mild shot) about the pitfalls of leaving early:

Doc’s decline

Sam Donnellon writes about Roy Halladay’s continued ineffectiveness:

Maybe this is part of the process required for him to become Roy again, but the Phillies are long out of their allowance for those type games. If their season is in fact a coffin, the nails already hammered in would have split and shredded their tomb. They need Roy to be Roy again. And fast.

Numb to it

Shane Victorino struck out on an odd play in the first inning. He got hit on the elbow and had to be removed from the game. Afterward, he said he lost all feeling in his hand, but is feeling much better.

Ballgirl flashing

Some leather. And, of course, both T-Mac and Wheels described it as a “heckuva” play.

After the game, Genevieve received some love on Twitter:

CHMM 

The Phillies are still actively trying to get a deal done with Hamels. We’re running out of adverbs here, folks, so something needs to happen.

“They’re trying — actively trying,” a person with knowledge of the situation told CSNPhilly.com on Monday afternoon. “They’re making offers.”

Shockey

On Philly Mag’s new Eagles blog, Birds 24/7, Tim McManus writes that the Eagles may be interested in Jeremy Shockey.