As Red October approaches, an appreciation for the best Phillies regular season in a long time

Rob Thomson, in his normal matter-of-fact manner, prefaced his statement on Wednesday night with the reality of the sport that goes from the largest sample to the smallest en route to crowning a champion: I mean, anything can happen in the playoffs…
But?
“This is a really good team. This is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Thomson told reporters at Citizens Bank Park. “I think there’s great balance. Our offense is good when we don’t chase, swing at strikes and use the entire field. Our offense is really good. Our rotation, obviously, is good. And we have an extremely deep bullpen.”
The numbers support everything that Thomson said there. Here are two of the most basic.

The Phil...