Still, to lay blame at his feet isn’t fair. It just isn’t.

Unless your name was Halladay, Hamels, Madsen, Utley or Rollins — and you’re a member of the Phillies — you shoulder part of responsibility for the disappointing, heart-wrenching, punch drunk stupor the Red Pinstripe Nation suffered through on Friday night.

Yes, all eyes will focus on Howard, the $25-million per year slugger who watched strike three to end last year and followed that up with a .105 average in the NLDS this year. Following six RBI in his first two games, Howard ended on an 0-for-15 slump. Yeah, he likely saved Game 1 with his three-run bomb that opened the floodgates toward an 11-run outburst. After that, though, nothing.

Ryan Howard was awful in the NLDS, but so were 20 other guys. If you want to blame Howard, you better add 20 other names to that list.

But, it doesn’t help when your three-hole hitter — a guy brought in to juice up this offense — hits .211. Yes, Hunter Pence was clearly in a food coma. And, the guy charged with protecting The Big Piece — Shane Victorino — ended up hitting .316. But, that isn’t indicative of the series he had. His two-hit output Friday bumped him from the .250 he had hit through four games.

Ibanez, Polanco and Chooch? Don’t get your DailyPhiladelphian going.

And then there’s Roy Oswalt who pitched like a fourth starter — not the ace he is paid to be. And, Cliff Lee? Did he get on the flight home from Atlanta? A four-run cushion that he can’t hold? Dude gives up 12 hits in six innings? If he gets a pass, then Howard gets one.

The fact is Doc Halladay lost a game in which he showed why he is, in fact, the best pitcher in baseball and the right guy to be the leader of the Phillies staff. Cole Hamels was a Ben Francisco homer away from joining Halladay as a hard-luck loser, and he flashed the brilliance that could cause him to leave Philly if the team doesn’t want to pay three aces $20-plus million a year.

Free agent-to-be Jimmy Rollins hit .450 and Chase Utley hit north of .400 as well.

You want to blame Howard? Fine. But, you better add about 20 other names to that list.

For one day at least, the Phillies were winners again.

Following an eight-game losing streak, the Fightins leave New York with a 9-4 win that hopefully builds into momentum going toward the playoffs.

THE POSITIVES

1. Doc Halladay threw six innings of scoreless, four-hit baseball. His strikeout numbers weren’t there (3), but it’s good to see Doc being Doc in his last regular season outing.

2. Carlos Ruiz. The guy has been on a tear as the Phillies head toward October. It’s not a huge surprise as Chooch has made his mark at the plate in October for the Fightins. The guy was hitting .259 on August 16. Today, he sits at .282.

Carlos Ruiz has been on a tear for the Phillies as the team heads toward his favorite month.

3. Hunter Pence continues to beast on opposing pitchers, maintaining his .313 average with three hits, including a homer and triple on Sunday.

4. Jimmy Rollins, who had three hits and scored twice on Sunday.

5. Ryan Howard who added two hits in three at-bats.

THE NEGATIVES

1. Antonio Bastardo who continued his late-season slump on the mound by giving up three runs in one-third of an inning. The Phillies need him to be the stud set-up man for Ryan Madson in October. Right now, he doesn’t look like it.

2. Shane Victorino who got one hit in six at-bats on Sunday. The Phillies MVP as of a few weeks back has seen his average drop from .314 on August 22 to .278 as of Sunday night.

The excuses end now. No matter what the Phillies have wrapped up and how long ago they did it, no matter what players are on the bench, you can’t have a seven game losing streak, including five in a row to the Triple-A lineups of the Washington Nationals and New York Mets.

What once seemed a certainty — winning 100 games and setting a franchise record for victories (101) — are now in the distance. With a 98-59 record, the Phillies have to win three of their last five games to tie the record. They way they have — or, actually, have not — been hitting is now a concern.

The team’s 2-1 loss in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader at Citi Field is the proverbial last straw. Getting no-hit by R.A. Dickey for six innings is unacceptable. Sure, the Fightins ended up tagging him for three hits and a run in the seventh, en route to banging out five hits in the game. But, too little too late is a recurring theme lately.

The Phils once again floundered a masterful pitching performance by Ace 1-B Cole Hamels, who allowed a single run on four hits over seven innings.

Again, a recurring theme.

Sure, we can sit here and make ourselves feel better by pointing to the fact that the Phillies are playing out the string and that injuries and R&R for certain players have taken apart the team’s line-up.

Those are excuses that now need to stop. This team has won a lot on pitching along with timely hitting. The pitching is still there. The hitting is another story.

The team has crossed the plate just 13 runs in the last seven games, a clip just north of two runs a game. Take out their 7-5 loss on Wednesday and it’s eight runs in six games.

And enough with the line-up theory. This team’s been bange up all year, yet has still won with players like Michael Martinez, John Mayberry and Wilson valdez manning starting spots.

In Saturday’s first game, the only regular missing was Hunter Pence. Granted, he’s the most consistent hitter right now, but you still need to get more than a run off of the Mets. And, you certainly need to beat the Mets when Hamels gives up one run in seven innings.

Are the Phillies still the favorite to get to, and win, the World Series? Yes. Are there reasons to be at least a bit concerned and to stop making excuses now? You better believe it.

Yeah, there was that minor hiccup in Houston, but this team was cruising.

Now, however, there is a small reason for concern. Since taking six straight games against the Braves and Brewers, the Phillies are 4-6. Save a doubleheader sweep against the Marlins in the Hurricane Irene make-up, and the Phillies lost two-of-three in Houston and three-of-four to the Cardinals. This is their worst stretch of the season and you don’t want that heading toward October.

The Phillies may find themselves in a battle with the Cardinals come October.

And, with each passing day, the Cradinals — and the Giants — inch closer to unseating the Braves for the Wild Card spot. Yes, your Phillies could very well face these red hot Cards in the first round of the playoffs. The Braves once commanding lead is down to 3 games, pending the Braves-Marlins final on Monday.

Do you want to face a hot team, a team that has just shown it can play with you, in a best-of-five series?

The Cards are gaining confidence in themselves, and against the vaunted Phillies rotation. The Phils lost games started by Vance Worley, Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay. Their lines in those games:

Worley: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 5 K
Hamels: 7 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 0 BB, 9 K
Halladay: 8 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 6 K

Obviously, the fact that the Phillies gave the starters no run support is the major issue. Just five runs over 29 innings in the three losses isn’t going to get the job done. Take away two runs in the ninth on Monday, and you’re talking three runs in 28 innings in the three losses.

Chris Carpenter, Kyle Loshe and the Cards have a decent staff if you didn’t notice. They’re not the Four Aces, but if they can keep the Phillies from getting timely hits, that can be a problem. See 2010 vs. the Giants.

Look, the 2011 Phillies are a hundred win team. With the adrenaline pf the playoffs and the frenzied atmosphere in South Philly, the Fightins will likely beat anyone in the opening round.

But, the Cardinals wouldn’t be a pushover and a sweep likely wouldn’t happen.

Of course, Big Ben has a .239 average with six homers and 33 RBI in 93 games. He barely sniffs the field anymore.

Yeah, there’s a reason why we’d never sell out to the BR, and this is just one in a series of examples. Well done, guys.

You could apply that statement to the Philadelphia Phillies and NL East Division Championships. At some point Saturday — maybe even Sunday — the Phillies will clinch their fifth straight division crown.

Let that sink in: Five consecutive division crowns by your Philadelphia Phillies, the longtime laughing stock of baseball, the first professional franchise to 10,000 losses.

While that is surely worthy of a champagne-induced celebration, the fact is this team is not aiming for a division title. World Series or bust. Parade or bust.

The Phillies look to clinch their fifth straight NL East title on Saturday.

A bigger accomplishment for this team in the regular season would be a 100-win celebration.

In any event, when this team captures the division crown, the hope here is that they handle it like last year: all business. Let the newbies — guys who have yet to cherish this moment — lead the celebration. A year ago it was Doc Halladay and Mike Sweeney giving hugs and popping champagne.

This year, Hunter Pence, Vance Worley, John Mayberry Jr., Michael Martinez, Mike Stutes and Antonio Batstardo should be at the forefront of the iced buckets upon entering the locker room. They’re the young guns, the new guys to this division thing.

Let the Howars, Utleys, Lees and Halladays lead the celebrations for the NLCS and beyond.

Ryan Howard is still the star of the Phillies day in and day out. The Fightins slugger came off the bench to give the Phillies a 2-1, ten-inning win in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader. Combined with the Phillies win earlier in the day, the team’s magic number to pop the champagne bottles for a fifth straight year is down to two.

A win over the Cardinals combined with a Braves loss Friday could make it a business casual party night. There will be no wild celebration as this team is far from its goal.

Cliff Lee continued his nonchalant ways Thursday, uttering the word "wow" after giving up a game-tying homer with two outs in the ninth.

Without Howard, the Phillies wouldn’t be in a good mood right now, thanks to that stiff Cliff Lee. The guy tossed 8.2 shutout innings, striking out 12 in the process. He then gave up a two-out, game-tying home run. Instead of getting the win and notching his seventh shutout of the season — the most by a Phillie since Lefty in 1972 — Lee gets a ND. Cy Young candidates finish out games.

Oh, and all lee can utter after giving up the homer? “Wow.”

Great reaction.

Seriously, Lee was masterful yet again and has kept himself entrenched in the Cy Young race with Roy Halladay. If Howard can use the pinch-hit, game winner to get on a roll, October will be nice yet again.

The Phillies, now just five wins away from the century mark on the season, clinched a playoff spot with a 1-0 Roy Halladay masterpiece in Houston that avoided a sweep at the hands of a 100-loss team. For a team whose strength entering the season was its starting pitching, it’s apropos to enter the postseason for the fifth consecutive year this way.

Doc pitched with precision that held the Astros to six hits in a complete game shutout, his seventh complete game of the season. He sat down seven batter on strikes and issued just one free pass.

The man who never seems to need support from his offense got virtually none on Wednesday. Save a Placido Polanco RBI-single that plated Shane Victorino in the first, the Phillies showed no offense, a recurring theme the last three days. Four hits won’t often get the job done.

For a team you want to see surging as September closes out and playoff baseball returns to South Philly, your eyebrows have to be raised at this point.

Brett Myers, J.A. Happ and Bud Norris made the Phillies line-up look like, well, the Phillies current rotation. Four runs on 15 hits in three games against the league’s worst team playing out the string is worse than pitiful.

This isn’t how you want the Phillies closing out the season.

Granted, there are still two weeks left in the season. Two weeks to get the offense back on track and regain the timely hitting penchant players like Victorino, John Mayberry and others had going. You just have to hope a doubleheader against the Marlins on Thursday is what the hit doctor ordered.

Pence is holding a contest to give away a batting glove when he belts his 20th long ball of the season. From his Twitter feed:

If you haven’t already, tweet and e-mail (hunterpencecontest@gmail.com) date you think I will hit HR #20 to win signed @reebok batting glove

Hunter Pence will be giving away his batting glove when he belts his 20th home run.

If you’re interested, you’d better hurry. He’s back in Houston the next three days. Combine the adrenaline of returning to his home state and the place where he started his career along with the fact that he faces Brett Myers, J.A. Happ and Bud Norris, and it won’t take long.

Our guess: The fifth inning tonight (Monday) off Brett Myers.

While we wait to see how he is received back in Houston — and something tells us he’ll get a rousing applause if the fans there love him one-tenth as much as we do — the All-Star outfielder himself seems happy to be back. Of course, chasing 100 wins on the best team in baseball will reignite anyone.

This wasn’t Hunter Pence’s breakfast date.

Via Pence’s Twitter feed:

Back in Houston! New pics posted on my Facebook page

The guy posted pics of him and his niece and nephew toying around the city, although he failed to indicate where he ate breakfast. As you may remember, Pence is from Texas and Philly is his first stop outside of the state that gives us the vaunted Dallas Cowboys (had to take that shot).

Since arriving in Philly, Pence has been a welcomed addition to the Phillies clubhouse and lineup. With the Phillies, he’s hit .319 with eight home runs and 24 RBI in 38 games.