Major League Baseball

Sam Donnellon: No fear from Phillies after year of adversity

Published Oct. 13, 2010 10:13 a.m. ET

foxsports

MOST AVOID the word as much as they do the media.

Any Phillies player worth his average will readily concede that baseball is a game of failure, and yet fear is something they never claim to consider, at least not in the conventional understanding of the word.

"It's not fear," Shane Victorino was saying after the Phillies' workout yesterday. "I know what you're saying. I mean, fear? They're two different versions of fear."

The baseball version, the one that propelled the Phillies to their fourth consecutive postseason and a first-round sweep of the Cincinnati Reds, hides behind several more palatable words. First and foremost is motivation, which casts a wide-ranging net around other emotions, like anger, revenge, opportunity and, yes, fear.

Maybe because they have yet to eclipse 100 regular-season victories, maybe because the roster is full of guys once overlooked, maybe because of the way their injury-filled 2010 season went or the way their 2009 season ended, the Phillies are not your typical team in its fourth consecutive postseason appearance.

They are realists. They have the hunger of a team that knows what it feels like to jump all over each other on the last day of the baseball season and knows what that looks like from the losing dugout as well. They know what it's like to reach the postseason after a 162-game grind without your best foot forward, that empty feeling of it all being over before it even started.

And they know the true meaning of adversity, overcoming this season of unending injuries and offensive off-years to win 97 games, and for the first time in the franchise's humble history, sweep a postseason series.

"Going into '08 we knew we had the potential but we knew we were going to have to play our butts off because of '07," said Brad Lidge, who joined the Phillies before the 2008 season. "I knew how good the Phillies were and obviously they knew how good they were because they were here. But we knew we were going to have to play our hardest and we did."

Last year Lidge was never right, of course, but he wasn't alone. The Phillies were in first place the entire season because they hit and hit and hit, but when it came to the World Series, their lack of pitching depth did them in. That and maybe a veteran Yankees team motivated by too many years removed from late October, a team that once assumed such appearances.

"We were on top the whole time and we went to the World Series so it wasn't like we lacked motivation or anything," said Lidge. "But for whatever reason we're a little more focused this year, a little more driven."

Here's my first theory on that:

They weren't on top the whole time this season. As late as the last week of August, the idea of catching the Braves to win a fourth straight division seemed far-fetched. Chase Utley was just returning from a long layoff, Ryan Howard was amid one, Victorino and Jimmy Rollins looked awful with bats in their hands, Placido Polanco was playing with bone chips in his elbow

The Phillies were no longer a team that drowned you with offense every night. If they weren't afraid, they looked pretty concerned.

Here's my second theory:

They know it's possible to lose based on 2007. They know what it takes to win a championship from 2008. And they know the razor's-edge difference between the two based on what the Yankees did to them last year.

"Did that tick you off?" I asked Lidge.

"Maybe a little bit," he said.

The 2010 regular season steeled this team. The thought of the Yankees now propels it. They will tell you they just want to make the World Series and that they don't care who they play, but the Gospel truth is that the Yankees are the most likely team to bring out their best.

"Well, yeah, of course," Victorino said. "They are the Yankees. And we said that last year. If we get to that point, the Yankees are that team with 26, now 27 championships.

"I can't look that far. That's the story you write if we get to the World Series. But do I want to play the team that made us their 27th notch? Damn right I want to play them. And beat them."

The Rays showed what happens when you overlook the final step, when you exhaust your emotions against the more personal team. The Giants will not be overlooked. Their pitching staff, and the presence of former teammates Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand, will assure that.

If you want to understand how this team could sweep the Reds with four extra-base hits, you start with their starting pitching. But who they are? You find that in that messy middle game, when they scored seven runs without consecutive base hits or a home run, when they overcame a 4-0 hole via a mix of emotions, including, yes, fear.

"The best way to say it is that nothing fazes us," said Victorino. "We don't take anything or anyone lightly. If that's fear, it's a good kind of fear."

Send e-mail to

donnels@phillynews.com.

For recent columns, go to

http://go.philly.com/donnellon.