A Phillies Phan's Phantastic Phorecast

We are an equal opportunity blog here. So I figured it was OK to take a post from a Phillies fan. I also figured it was good to talk to him one more time before the series starts and the BBM trash-talking begins. Zack is a huge Phillies fan and wanted so badly to get me a World Series preview, he typed this whole thing up on his Blackberry. Here is Zack's guest post preview of the World Series--one which, I have to say, I was surprised by:

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 Yes, the Yankees are trying to win their first wold series since 2000. Yes, A-Rod is looking for his first championship. Yes, this is the biggest stage Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia have ever played on--and this is exactly why they were brought here.

But this is also the second straight appearance for the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. The Phillies are looking to be the first Philadelphia team to repeat since hockey's Flyers in 1975 and 1976. 

The offense of the Phillies will be key to the series. They led the National League in runs and had 5 position players in the Midseason Classic. The Phils do tend to disappear at times and have been known to follow up a 15-run slugfest by getting 2-hit against a no-name rookie (Andrew's side-note: this sounds like the Yankees, a lot). Vincente Padilla even shut them down in game 2 of the NLCS, going 7.1 innings, giving up only 4 hits and one run, while striking out 6.

Will the Phillies be able to get the shine off the Yankees' brass? The longball is a strength of this Phillies team as they had 4 players slug 30 or more this year: Ryan Howard (45 HR), Chase Utley (31 HR), Raul Ibanez (34 HR), and Jayson Werth (36 HR).

Will relying on the longball in two hitters parks lead to a repeat, or will the team pick up one of their infectious hitting days and get shut down? Let's hope its the former. It was last season when they hammered CC--who was then a Brewer--in game 2 of the Divison Series (he gave up 5 runs in 3.2 innings). 

This is a different year, however, and CC is now a Yankee. I love the Phillies, but I have to put my reputation above my allegiance. In a surprise, I'm going with the Yankees in 6.