With the season hitting the half-way mark, we figured it would be a good time to check on the status of the Mets’ first-place competitors, the Philadelphia Phillies. To help us out, we once again turned to Paul Hagen, who covers the Phillies for the Philadelphia Daily News. Paul was nice enough to assess the Phillies’ first half and answer our questions about expectations for the second.

What is your impression of the Phillies season as the first half comes to a close? Who and/or what has been the biggest surprise of the season so far? The biggest disappointment?

This is a pretty all-encompassing question, but I’ll see what I can do here.

Breaking it down, the starting pitching hasn’t been as good as I expected. The bullpen has been much better. The offense has been about what I thought it would be, although the last couple weeks have been pretty disturbing.

Starting pitching: Brett Myers was the Opening Day starter. Yeah, Cole Hamels probably should have been. But the Phillies wanted to emphasize to Myers that they had confidence in him going back to the rotation after transitioning to closer last year. It hasn’t worked and nobody can quite put their finger on why. I mean, at one level it’s simple. He’s throwing way too many hittable pitches. But why he’s doing that is a riddle.

Hamels has pitched to expectations. Jamie Moyer has probably been even better considering that he’s 45 years old. But he’s also worked deep into games a lot, which has raised a concern about a possible fall-off in the second half. Kyle Kendrick hasn’t been quite as aggressive as he was as a rookie, although he’s shown some signs of turning it around recently. Adam Eaton has been better than last year. But last year he was one of baseball’s worst starters, so the bar was pretty low.

The biggest thing the Phillies have had going for them pitching-wise is that they haven’t had a single injury all season. They’ve used the same five starters and same seven relievers all year. (Tim Fahey was on the Opening Day roster but didn’t pitch and was let go after Rudy Seanez signed on April 2.)

Brad Lidge was a question mark when the Phillies acquired him from Houston, but he’s been lights out. There was some question whether J.C. Romero could have another year like he did last year after he was DFA’d by the Red Sox, but so far he has. Chad Durbin has been terrific. Ryan Madson has been good. The biggest question, naturally, is whether they can all keep it up for another half of a season.

The one concern at the moment is Tom Gordon. He’s 40 years old and has been pitching with a partial tear in his rotator cuff for a couple years now. It’s been bothering him a little lately.

The offense has pretty much disappeared since scoring 20 runs against the Cardinals on June 13. The Phillies are attributing a lot of that to interleague play–they went 4-11–but we’ll see. They’ve scored a lot of runs overall, but the scariest part is that 110 of them have come in just 8 games. And their record when they score three or fewer runs is terrible.

Biggest surprise: The bullpen in general and Lidge in particular. Biggest disappointment: Myers, by far. A distant second would be So Taguchi, who was a terrific pinch-hitter for the Cardinals last year but is 0-for-13 as a pinch-hitter for the Phillies this year and has also dropped at least five catchable fly balls in the outfield.

Pat Gillick is rumored to be leaving the GM spot at the end of the season. Does his self-imposed lame duck status mean he’ll be looking to make a big splash at or before the deadline to try and secure a postseason spot, or will “Stand Pat” live up to his nickname? And if this really is the end, how would you grade the Pat Gillick Era in Philadelphia?

The “Stand Pat” nickname from his Toronto days is pretty much obsolete. He’s made a lot of moves since coming to Philadelphia and I think he’ll do what he can to makes deals the rets of this season. Not because he’s trying to make a big splash on his way out the door, but because there is a recognition on the part of the organization that they have a window of opportunity here with Rollins, Utley, Howard, Hamels and Lidge (who can be a free agent at the end of the year) and aren’t doing their job if they don’t do everything they can to address their weaknesses.

A final grade, of course, will depend on what happens this year and what the ripple effect is after he leaves. In other words, if he trades away a bunch of top prospects to make the playoffs this year and they get beat in the first round, you’d have to look at that a few years down the road. But the Phillies hadn’t made the playoffs since 1993 before he got here. They made it last year. So that has to count for something.

On a related note, if the Phillies do decide to look to make a trade, who are some of the likely candidates? Erik Bedard? Do you think the Phillies have the prospects to pull off that kind of deal?

I think they’ll aim high. I think they’ll start with Sabathia and then work their way down the list until they find a deal they can do. They may end up with, say, Paul Byrd, but I really believe they’re going to start by trying to get the best starting pitcher they can get.

I think they have good enough prospects to get a top pitcher. The real question is whether they’re willing to strip the farm system to take ashot at it this year, knowing that it could undermine them in the future.

Are there any prospects that might come up and help Philadelphia make a playoff run? Do you think Carlos Carrasco is ready?

From what I hear, Carrasco really isn’t ready. The pitcher closest to being ready to help at the moment is LHP J.A. Happ at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. They’re also keeping an eye on Kris Benson, but he pitched for Lehigh Valley Sunday and looked like he’s still a ways off following March, 2007 shoulder surgery.

A report by Baseball Prospectus today said that the Phillies have enjoyed the smallest home field advantage, by winning percentage over the last five years. Do you make anything out of that? What is your impression of the Phillies fans, and their reputation for sometimes being hostile? Is it overblown?

Just a guess, but my feeling is that this could be true because the shoirt dimensions at Citizens Bank Park make the hitters too conscious of trying to hit home runs and because of the cumulative pressure on pitchers who have to start half their games there. The thing about Phillies fans is that they’re extreme in both directions. Extremely negative when things are going bnad, sure, but there probably aren’t fans that get behind a winning team better, either.

What will the Phillies do (if anything) about the struggles of Ryan Howard so far?

He’s batting .215. He’s going to smash his own strikeout record, 199, set last year. And yet, he leads the leagure in RBI. So I’m not sure what they can do. Baseball has created an environment (and the Phillies have done nothing to contradict it) that rewards players above all for hitting home runs. I know they talk to Howard about going the other way, shortening up his swing with two strikes, etc. But he’s pretty aware that when he goes to arbitration next year, if he hits enough homers and drives in enough runs, he’s probably going to win. So I’m not sure what can be done.

What is your take on the Mets’ season so far? Who, out of the Mets, Marlins, and Braves, looks like the likeliest challenger to the Phillies in the second half?

The Mets are an older team, obviously, and older teams tend to be subject to injuries. The Mets also don’t seem to play solid baseball. Maybe that will change under Jerry Manuel.

If I’m the Phillies, I can’t worry about anybody else right now. The Phillies have problems of their own.

I don’t want to wimp out on the question, but I think it’s really unanswerable. If the Braves can get healthy, they can make a run. But if Chipper gets hurt, they’ve got no shot. I didn’t think the Marlins could hang in there but here we are halfway through the season, and they’re stiull hanging around. It’s really hard to see the Mets making a move since they’ve been basically a .500 team for over a year now. But if they make a key trade before the deadline. . .

Fully understanding that this is a little like picking lottery numbers, I’d rank the challengers in this order: Marlins, Braves, Mets.