What more can be said? How much more clear does it have to be made?

The Philadelphia Phillies have made an authoritative, boisterous statement.

Doesn't matter what the fans of the Philadelphia Phillies think, doesn't matter what the Atlanta Braves fans think, the Philadelphia Phillies, are indeed, the team to beat in the NL.

Top Five Stories From Yesterday

1. The Phillies sweep the Braves out of Philadelphia, increasing their lead in the NL East to six games and reducing their magic number to four.

2. The Padres retake the lead in the NL West after they defeat the Dodgers, and the Giants lose to the Cubs.

3. The Rays get back to within 1.5 games of the Yankees after winning the third game of their big four-game series.

Something that is commonly overlooked in baseball and other sports is the fans.  Yes, the players are the ones who are playing the games and winning them.  But the players aren't the only people who influence the outcome of the team.  Fans do too.  Especially in Philadelphia.

I'm not saying that the players don't make the team win or lose.  I'm just saying that the fans can influence the way that the players play, and that they deserve a lot more credit than they usually get.

OK, this assumes the Phillies will go to the World Series but here goes nothing.

If the Phillies are the top seed in the NL (which they would be if the season ended today), they would get the option of playing Game 1 on Wednesday vs Game 1 on Thursday. All other games would be the same regardless.

Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez powered a red-hot offense and Roy Halladay gutted it out for seven tough innings as the Phillies defeated the Braves 5-3 before a raucous Citizens Bank Park crowd.

The (what-else?) sellout crowd of rabid towel-waving rowdies saw Halladay notch his 20th victory, as the hometown Phils took a decisive five-game lead over the second-place Braves with just 10 games left to play.

In the winter before the Phillies' 2010 season, most of the talk revolved around Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, but one of the most exciting moves made by Ruben Amaro Jr. this off season was the acquisition of Placido Polanco.

I've got some bad news for you, Cole Hamels.

You might be known as Hollywood to your teammates, you might be married to a Survivor star that got naked for some chocolate (not that I watched, of course), and you may have even spent the better part of 2009 posing as a Comcast spokesperson.

But to me? You're boring.

When it comes time to renew a player's contract, make trades, or sign free agents, major league general managers can seem incredibly cut-throat and can be perceived as demonstrating little loyalty to their players.

But when major league general managers change jobs, they are often stricken with a dose of loyalty, and will often seek to acquire many of the prospects and youngsters they developed during their time with the previous team.

Top Five Stories From Yesterday

1. The defending champion Saints get a 37-yard game winning FG from Garrett Hartley to beat San Francisco by three as time expires, but lose star Reggie Bush to a broken leg on Monday Night Football.

2. The Yankees increase their lead over Tampa Bay in the AL East to 1.5 games on a night when New York honored its late owner George Steinbrenner.

When LHP Cole Hamels had his national coming-out party in the 2008 playoffs, I thought it would springboard him to a Cy Young-caliber year in 2009.

I predicted Hamels would win the National League Cy Young, and that prediction slapped me in the face like I would like to slap Braylon Edwards in the face for getting a DWI this morning.