Philadelphia Phillies Bring in the Halladay with a Promise: The National League

On the fourth day of September, our true love gave to us,
four games unbeaten,
three aces pitching,
two straight World Series,
and a game back the NL East.

It feels like a holiday doesn't it? So I figured a song would be appropriate.

It literally is a holiday weekend, with a Halladay on the mound, and don't look now, but those guys we voted to be less confident in, even writing them off at one point, are making that surge we knew, deep down, would come.

Of course the polls have switched now, because the Phillies are showing us signs that they are still every bit as resilient as they have ever been.

Four games into the September push, the Phils will not take no for an answer. Heck, they won't even accept a maybe. They are gunning for the top spot.

They may, in fact, have their eyes set on No. 1 overall in the NL. They're only a game and a half back, and they're the hottest team in the National League right now with five consecutive wins.

What we're seeing here is a beautiful compliment of pitchers and hitters. When the bats were down, the pitchers held down the fort. With Halladay in line to lose his third straight start on September 4, 2010, the bats exploded.

The Phils rallied again, to win another close game against the Milwaukee Brewers Saturday evening 5-4.

The Phillies seem to love the tight games, boasting a 24-14 record in one-run games. They show us a healthy mixture of long balls like we've seen on Thursday night to the small ball comebacks we've seen today. This is what the Phillies possessed all of these seasons.

Now on top of that, they've got three aces. Is it now apparent yet? These guys have a knack for winning, and it won't stop until they break up or get too old.

After September 5 2010, the rest of the season is in house—all NL East folks.

I'm going to go ahead and make a bold statement: by time October arrives, the Philadelphia Phillies will be the No. 1 seed in the National League.