Game 1: Hands Off the Panic Button

Phillies fans, welcome back to reality.

Brett Myers returned to early 08 form and the offense couldn’t figure out Derek Lowe as the World Champion Phillies dropped their first meaningful game since last October’s World Series 4-1 to division rival Atlanta.

As the radio hosts and bloggers have said all day long, last night’s game was only the first of 162. Clearly, we shouldn’t panic or jump off the bandwagon just yet. Just like one win can’t make a season, one loss won’t kill it either. If you find yourself panicked at this point, relax. This team will be fine.

However, the game turned out to be a letdown coming off the world championship celebration of the past five months. We were amped up and ready to go only to watch Brett Myers let up three homeruns and the Phils offense squeeze out a meager four hits. Perhaps, the Phillies suffered from a bit of a championship ceremony hangover. That’s understandable. As long as it doesn’t extend too far into April, this team will be fine.

Much of the talk today focused on the left-left-left middle of the order the Phils currently feature. This was one of the few concerns a lot of us had coming into this season. Well, it took one game for this potential downfall to rear its ugly head. Braves left-handed closer Mike Gonzalez made Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez look silly in the bottom of the ninth with runners on base. The quick fix is probably to move Jayson Werth down into the 5-hole and move Victorino to the 2-hole. This lineup might not be ideal, but it breaks up those left-handed bats and forces the opposing manager to game plan more instead of sticking with a tough lefty in the late innings.

Problem solved. Now, we must figure a way to get Brett Myers out of the first inning.