The Phillies won last night, but it was one of the emptiest victories I’ve ever experienced in my 34 years as a Phillies fan.

Those of you in the Phillies blogosphere are well aware of what transpired last night, but for those of you less familiar with the mockery of being a Philadelphia sports fan, allow me to recap.

The Phillies bullpen stinks. This is not a subjective statement; it is fact. What was obvious to all of us before spring training started became painfully obvious even through the glaucoma of Phillies management during the early going of the regular season, so much so that they committed an act of baseball insanity by moving their best starting pitcher, Brett Myers, to the bullpen to set-up closer Tom “Flash! Ah-ah!” Gordon. Once the geriatric Gordon (who is still under contract for 2008) inevitably went down with shoulder trouble and consumption, the move almost looked smart because now Myers could close games.

Only thing is, Myers was still the only guy in the bullpen capable of consistently retiring professional hitters. That meant lots of four- and five-out saves because the manager, rightly so, didn’t trust anyone else to do the job. So, instead of pitching six to eight innings every fifth day, as was his custom, Myers was being rolled out to mound damn near every night to ensure wins for a team with no real prospects anyway.

Fast forward to last night.

The Phillies led the Marlins 7-3 in the bottom of the ninth and who trots into the game? Myers, the only pitcher Manuel can trust to protect a four-run lead. But even that would prove difficult for Myers, who promptly gave up three runs, the last of which should have come on an out if not for a horrible decision to throw home by first baseman Greg Dobbs, ensuring safety at all bases. That fateful throw led to the following chain of events…

Now nursing only a one-run lead with a runner on first and none out (should be no one on and one out), Myers pulled himself together and struck out Miguel Cabrera, hit Josh Willingham and struck out Jeremy Hermida, which would have ended the inning had Dobbs taken the out at first earlier. Instead, it’s now runners on first and second, two outs; which led to the next unbelievable gaffe.

Aaron Boone, who should never have been at bat, singled to left and the Marlins waved home speedy Hanley Ramirez from second to try and tie the game. Leftfielder Jayson Werth threw a perfect strike to catcher Rod Barajas roughly 20 feet ahead of the runner. Easy out. Only instead of staying down and blocking home plate, Barajas stood up to tag out Ramirez, who gamely slid right under Barajas’ tag and scored the tying run.

For the second time this inning, the Phillies should have had three outs and a win, but didn’t. Now Myers, once again facing a hitter he shouldn’t have, threw two balls to Miguel Olivo, the second a wild pitch on which Myers hurt his shoulder and was removed from the game. He is now out indefinitely.

The Phillies went on to win the game in the 10th inning, a consolation Barajas suggested will allow everyone to look back on this game and laugh. I’ve got a funny idea: Send Barajas to triple-A purgatory and give the backup catcher job to Chris Coste permanently. Ha. Ha.

So who will close games for the Phightins now? Word on the street suggests they’ll be facilitating the Major League comeback of 80-year-old Troy Percival. Perhaps they should just get the comedy over with and sign him to a duplicate of Gordon’s contract.

I knew I got out of this racket for a reason. Maybe it’s time to start writing about something else.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since I last posted here. You wouldn’t know it in terms of the Phillies’ progress.

Our inexplicably beloved team stumbles toward the ignominy of 10,000 losses (get ready to celebrate around the All-Star break!), the same boneheaded management—both general and in the dugout—remains, and the same hapless ownership group oversees all of it, piloting the same drifting, yet somehow profitable, ship to nowhere.

One-third of the infield trio the current franchise is built around has compounded his horrible start by going on the DL. The bullpen is nothing short of atrocious. The team’s best starting pitcher was converted into a set-up man/closer, a move so mind-numbingly stupid, only a franchise this inept could make it look smart while their 79-year-old closer is laid up in the hospital with a swollen shoulder and respiratory infection.

I particularly enjoyed their rationalization of the move, that this way they can use Myers in 65-70 games instead of just 35. So you’d rather have him for around 100 innings instead of 225?

And to top it all off, the team finally has the one thing it’s always lacked, decent starting pitching from top to bottom, and yet they stand at 17-20, seven games behind guess who: Atlanta. Why? Leaving 302 runners stranded in 37 games doesn’t help, as well as the aforementioned atrocious bullpen.

The more things change, the more they stay the same: The motto of the Philadelphia Phillies.