So just imagine where they'd be if their often-dysfunctional offense hadn't scored three runs or fewer 22 times since the break -- including nine times in the last 12 games?

"The way we've caught the ball," Bowa says, "and the way we've pitched for the most part, we should be winning a lot more games."

Somehow, though, they've won enough to hang around with a Braves team that most people just assumed would stampede off with the division as soon as the Phillies lost an 8-game lead in 26 days in June. Hmmm. That's funny. Here it is, almost September, and those Braves playoff tickets are still not for sale at any ticket windows near you.

"I hope these players know they should cherish this," Bowa says, "because you don't know what's going to happen. I keep hearing people talk about pressure, but there's no pressure on this team, because no one picked us to win. The pressure's on Atlanta, not us. If Atlanta lets us beat them, shame on them."

Regardless of whether or not the Braves rediscover their championship heart in September, though, you can see the future of the National League East pivoting before your eyes. Great as the Braves may have been for a dozen years, their window can't stay open forever. And the Phillies are as well-positioned to jump through that window as the Marlins, Expos or Mets.

On the other hand, says GM Ed Wade, "as quickly as we could go from 32 under last year to 11 or 12 over this year and in the race, that's how fast it can turn around the other way. So we're not overly satisfied. We've made that improvement. Now we've got to take the next step."

Well, if they're going to take it, here's a look at the key components:

The pitchers
Sure, their three rookie pitchers -- Duckworth, Coggin and Nelson Figueroa -- have gone a combined 10-7. Still, you don't hear them talked about in the same vein as the Hudson-Zito-Mulder troika in Oakland, or the Miller-Oswalt-Hernandez trio in Houston.

It's only natural to wonder: How good are they? So we asked the catcher.

"All three have great composure," says Todd Pratt, who views this group with the fresh eyes of a man who was catching for a World Series team in Queens last October. "Figueroa is more of a control-type pitcher. Coggin has the power sinker and power slider. And Duckworth -- whew. He's got four above-average major-league pitches.

"This guy has Maddux kind of stuff -- but harder," Pratt said of Duckworth. "If he stays healthy, you'll hear his name a lot the next few years. This guy has pitched to good lineups and just overwhelmed them. And I don't think it's because it's their first look at him. He was doing it the second and third time through the lineup."

But Duckworth, Coggin and Figueroa are just the first three young pitchers to get off the talent train in this system. One AL executive rates the Phillies' minor-league pitching depth to be among the top five in baseball. And they'll be reaping those fruits for years. Which brings us to ...

The prospects
We surveyed several scouts about the Phillies' talent in Double-A and Triple-A. They were viewed as having seven legitimate pitching prospects in Double-A alone, an amazing number. (Best of that group: Brett Myers, Carlos Silva, Franklin Nunez.)

Then, in Triple-A, they were regarded as having three more bullpen prospects in Doug Nickle, Tom Jacquez and Rule 5 draftee Pete Zamora. And that doesn't even count Vicente Padilla, the ex-Diamondback currently reloading in Triple-A.

Best of all those pitchers: Myers, a 21-year-old mini-Schilling who is 13-4, 3.81, with one loss since June 7. Words like "special" and "front-of-the-rotation" starter were attached to him. So, however, was a cautionary, "still has some growing up to do."

Best position player, by far: minor-league player-of-the-year candidate Marlon Byrd, currently playing center field in Double-A. At age 23, despite skipping a level, he's hitting .316 and bearing down on 30-30 land, with 28 homers and 30 steals.

A scout who called Byrd the best position player in the Eastern League reviewed him this way: "Really impressed me this season. He's just so explosive in everything he does. ... Appears to have excellent makeup and a great, focused attitude. He has some work to do at the plate, but ... with his athleticism, it's only a matter of time before he finds an approach at the plate which will really pay off for years to come."

Other position players just over the horizon: Triple-A outfielder Eric Valent, Double-A shortstop Anderson Machado.

Money matters
Only six teams in baseball started the season with a lower payroll than the Phillies ($41.7 million). But if this is really going to be a team on the rise, one thing is certain: That payroll can't ever be that low again.

No one has ever described this ownership group, headed by club president/CEO David Montgomery, as Steinbrenner-esque. But Wade promises the Phillies are heading for a day, around the opening of their new ballpark in 2004, when their payroll will be "commensurate with our market size -- in other words, in the top seven to 10 or 12."

And it will have to be. Abreu can be a free agent after 2003 and is on the cusp of a monster contract. Lieberthal's deal expires the same year. Rollins and Burrell might make huge money some day. And if, by some miracle, Rolen is still around, it figures to take a $100-million megacontract to make that possible.

Then there is the cost of adding other pieces this club will need to improve. You don't have to be an M.I.T. grad to do that math.

Wade isn't discussing specifics. But he knows money will always be an issue for this club -- and its fans -- until it proves it's willing to spend it consistently.

"We've got three goals," he says. "The first is to win. The second is to retain our nucleus. And the third is to continue to get better. Those are the goals, and we're prepared to devote every available resource to achieve them."

But keeping Rolen doesn't figure to be about dollars. It will be, at least now, about unhealed scars from the shots taken at him by Bowa and Green earlier this year. If Rolen forces the Phillies to deal him this winter, when he's a year from free agency, they won't be getting a 26-year-old Human Web Gem 100-RBI man to replace him. There's only one of them.

So how the Phillies handle that situation -- whether Rolen stays or goes -- could well determine the future of the franchise. He's a far more difficult commodity to replace than even Curt Schilling, who was only out there 35 times a year.

New attitudes
The path from perennial losers to perennial contenders doesn't simply wind through the standings. It begins in the mind.

And changing the mind-set of a team that had almost gotten resigned to losing was the No. 1 reason Wade hired Bowa.

"He's been criticized for being tough on the players," Wade says. "But he's done exactly what we asked. He's established a sense of urgency and a sense of accountability: Don't look at somebody else to become the go-to guy. Put it on yourself to do what needs to be done."

We've often heard players and executives from other clubs wonder if the Phillies know how talented they are. The manager has wondered himself.

"I've preached to them all year," Bowa says, "that 'you're better than you think you are. You're better than people say you are.' That was my speech in spring training. You can't doubt yourself in this game, because the other team senses it."

As they've lurched through the race -- streaking one way, then the other -- they've emitted that sense, too. But Wade says he was told by Paul Owens, the GM who crafted the Phillies' renaissance in the '70s, that they won't see how this season has really changed this group until next spring training.

"It sounds like such a simple remark," Wade says. "But the truth of it is, when we went to spring training this year, there was a lot of uncertainty -- over whether the moves we made last winter were appropriate, whether Marlon and Jimmy were ready to play every day in the middle of the diamond, whether Travis Lee could be what we thought he could at first base.

"I know we had those questions. So the individual players had to have the same questions. But hopefully, we'll sustain this (success) the entire season. And that's when you benefit from this experience -- and come in next spring with a greater expectation of what you're capable of."

That's a view these players seem to share.

"A lot of where we go from here," says Glanville, "is where we've come from -- dealing with the downs and the lows of the last few years. I know I have a greater appreciation for being here now because of last year. ... For the guys who were here all last year, we all have a different perspective, because we've come so far."

But both Wade and Bowa would like to see this team add a proven veteran player who has won, someone who can be to this group what Pete Rose was to Bowa's Phillies of 20 years ago.

"We need somebody to be a voice in that clubhouse," Bowa says, "somebody who has had success, who can say, 'OK, guys. Let's go.' They don't want to hear the coaches say that. They want to hear it from one of their own."

But what potential free agent fits that definition? Jason Giambi? And then who?

"Those kinds of guys are tough to find," Wade says. "But we'll still try."

Success and the city
Every night the Phillies play baseball in Philadelphia, an ocean of empty blue seats reminds them how much losing has gone on -- and how skeptical the people of Philadelphia are that all this is for real.

But if those people would stop focusing on the many sins of the past, painful as they were, they might discover they're in for a fun future.

"You know, I do a radio show every Saturday," Wade says, "and I'm still getting a lot of the same calls: '13 out of 14 losing seasons. ... You're not going to spend the money. ... You've gotta do this or that for next year. ... '

"So I guess a lot of people -- for whatever reasons, for whatever influences -- are not paying attention to what's going on here. They're not giving these guys enough credit for what they're doing right now and what they're capable of doing in the future. But that's all right. This is a city where you have to show them you deserve their support. Hopefully, if we can sustain this success, we'll show them."

And if not, for once, at least those words, "wait till next year," don't have the same painful ring in Philadelphia that they've had for most of Jimmy Rollins' lifetime.

Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com.