I guess the only lower point the Phillies could have reached this weekend would have been a sweep at the hands of the Pirates.

The Phightins have pissed away a golden opportunity to take advantage of an easy April schedule against the dregs of the National League, instead finishing the month at 10-14, same as last year. Too bad this team isn’t as good as last year’s and won’t be able to play themselves back into contention.

By the way, has anyone noticed how the guy the Phillies could have hired instead of Charlie Manuel is doing in Detroit? Jim Leyland has the far less talented Tigers at 16-9.

Will Ed Wade’s reign of terror ever end?

Let’s talk about the only Philadelphia team that actually has a chance to make the playoffs this year: the Eagles. (Yes, I know the Flyers are still in the Stanley Cup playoffs for at least another game, but that doesn’t count because everyone makes the NHL playoffs and no one is paying attention anyway.)

There were two factors that derailed the Eagles last season. One of them was obvious to any casual NFL observer: injuries. The other was only obvious to the most earnest follower of the team: lack of a pass rush.

(Sidebar: Notice I didn’t mention he whose name shall not be spoken. Here in Dallas, he’s getting way too much credit for destroying two franchises. San Francisco has been wrecked by bad ownership and the Eagles were grounded for the aforementioned reasons. With or without him, the result would have been the same. That’s not to say he won’t cause a lot of trouble for the Boys, God willing, but let’s not over-dramatize his affect on the Eagles’ season.)

The only player the Eagles drafted this weekend who I’ve heard of is Colorado wide receiver Jeremy Bloom, who runs like a deer and whose absurd run-ins with the obtuse NCAA over his X-Games endorsement money cost him his junior and senior seasons. I don’t know anything about the other players Andy Reid & Co. drafted except that they address the team’s needs exactly: three defensive lineman and a linebacker, two offensive lineman, and two wide receivers.

Whether any of these guys will pan out or not is anybody’s guess, but at least Reid and his staff focused on where the trouble was and didn’t take any shots in the dark. Now if they can just stay healthy this year…

It was nice to be back in a ballpark last night.

It’s even nicer when your father’s company’s seats are in the first row on the home plate side of the first base dugout.

Then, in what an acid flashback must feel like, Vicente Padilla took the mound for the Texas Rangers and pitched a maddeningly inefficient 5.2 innings, giving up six hits and four walks on 101 pitches, only 59 of which were strikes, to an Oakland lineup that can’t hit water falling out of a boat.

Sound familiar Phillies fans?

Speaking of the Phillies, it seems I was thankfully spared from seeing another horrifying performance by Gavin “My Brain Hurts” Floyd while watching the Rangers successfully deploy their strategy of home runs or bust.

There seems to be little indication that anything is improving on this ball club. That means a .500 season at best.

Yes, feels like old times indeed.

Thanks to some miserable April weather in the Northeast, the Phillies may have avoided a series loss to possibly the worst team in baseball.

Then they lost one of their best, albeit struggling, players on a call so bad, first base umpire Dan Iassogna ought to be calling games on the Alaskan semi-pro circuit next week. Replays showed Utley’s foot on the bag while the ball was still a full yard away from the first baseman’s glove.

It cost the Phillies a run, but not the game, as Utley’s infuriated helmet slam and ejection, followed Charlie Manuel’s me-too ejection, provided some spark.

Or perhaps it was Ryan Howard’s gargantuan home run to center field (into the wind no less) that provided the lift. As regular readers of this space know, I’ve long advocated for the removal of the shrubbery in front of the centerfield batter’s eye, thus requiring home runs to clear that enormous wall. I guess under my architectural vision, Howard would have been the first player ever to homer to centerfield at the Safe-Deposit Box.

I now think it’s an even better idea.

Wow. The Phillies really suck.

It’s like watching the high-priced, mismatched Mets of the last five years.

In fact, that’s exactly the problem with this team: no chemistry. They’re just a stat book—an expensive, badly managed stat book. The Phillies have looked pretty good on paper the last few years, but they always came up a few games short.

Now it looks like they’re going to come up a few dozen games short.

The Phillies, like any team, are a big jigsaw puzzle; and a few of pieces obviously don’t fit the big picture. The trick for Pat Gillick will be figuring out which pieces to replace.

This lack of chemistry has been going on since before Utley and Howard got here (plus Utley is all hustle), so I don’t think they’re the problem. Rollins is as solid as they get at shortstop and seems to try his damnedest to win, even if his free-swinging style often screws up those efforts. Myers may be a hard-head, but at least he’s got big-league stuff and some fire in his belly.

Of the core players in the Phillies’ foreseeable future, that’s leaves Burrell and Abreu. I never thought I’d find myself in the ‘Trade Abreu’ camp, but if an A-list pitcher or two come back in the deal, maybe it’s time for one or both of them to go.

Food for thought.