Pitchers, catchers and some weak trash-talk

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The ceremonial first shot was fired across Florida from Mets camp to the Carpenter Complex and it was a dud.

In case you missed it, and that would have been easy, Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez tried to embrace his new team's fiercest rivalry by proclaiming the Amazin' Collapsibles "the team to beat" in the National League East. When Rodriguez's boast played on the TV in the Phillies' clubhouse yesterday morning, a handful of dining players watched with no visible reaction.

No forks were dropped, no Gatorade sprayed in comic spit takes.

It was fun while it lasted, but the war of words between the Phillies and Mets won't have quite the same spirit this year. The Phillies' World Series championship kind of makes boasts like Rodriguez's sound even more hollow than usual.

Two years ago, Jimmy Rollins' declaration that the Phillies were the team to beat was a brash challenge - more to his own teammates than to the Mets.

Last year, Carlos Beltran threw down the gauntlet with a similar proclamation. Beltran meant his version as a playful jab at Rollins as well as a confidence boost to teammates who endured the Mets' epic 2007 collapse.

Both years, when the pressure was on, it was the Phillies who stepped up and the Mets who fell down. Last fall, the Phillies raised the temperature on the rivalry by using the Mets' prone carcass as a stepping-stone to a championship.

Enter Rodriguez. The free-agent closer was brought in to solve the Mets' recurring problem of blowing late-inning leads. So was setup man J.J. Putz. Mets GM Omar Minaya apparently noticed Brad Lidge's perfect season and postseason for the Phillies.

"Whatever they did last year," Rodriguez told reporters in Port St. Lucie, Fla., "they already got paid. Whatever they did, I have all the respect in the world. They worked hard and they deserve it. This is a different year and different ball clubs now. I don't want to make any controversy, but with me and Putz and the additions in the bullpen, I feel like now we are the team to beat."

OK, so it was perhaps the most polite and respectful throwdown in trash-talk history. That doesn't make it any more accurate than last year's claim by Beltran, who was inspired by the addition of starting pitcher Johan Santana.

The lesson should be clear. The division title is won during the spring, summer and fall, not the winter.

Win the World Series and you are, by definition, the team to beat. History says the Phillies face very long odds in their quest to repeat. The whole idea is so alien to Philadelphia fans - 25 years without a champion means a quarter-century without wondering if your team can repeat - that it feels almost ungrateful, even greedy, to ponder it.

But what the heck. There is no reason these Phillies can't be every bit as competitive as last year's team.

"Our ultimate goal now is to win again," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "We've got the talent. I just want us to keep the same way of playing, the same attitude, and we'll be OK. . . . I think we can be better than we were last year."

Manuel made good points. The Phillies won the division despite a number of potentially ruinous developments last season. Three-fifths of the original starting rotation - Brett Myers, Adam Eaton and Kyle Kendrick - melted down to some degree. Myers did time in the minors, Eaton was exiled and Kendrick disappeared near the end of the season. Ryan Howard went through a long frigid spell, Chase Utley was playing with a painful hip injury, and neither Jimmy Rollins nor Pat Burrell had his best overall season.

The offense was hot for a while. The starting pitching was exceptional at the end. The bullpen was terrific all along.

If the Phillies could get all those cylinders firing consistently over the full season, well, there's no reason they couldn't win 100 games and be back in the postseason. Injuries, slumps, bad luck - a million things could just as easily go wrong.

The difference from each of the last 27 years is that there's no wondering whether this team is capable of winning a title. It is. It did. And that's what makes chatter from the Mets camp nothing but noise. Even if New York can seize the division this year, it can't take the Phillies' title away.

Over in Port St. Lucie, Mets manager Jerry Manuel is trying to make his team forget all about 2008 and its second stunning collapse in a row. Here, Charlie Manuel is trying to make his team forget about 2008's stunning success and refocus for the long season ahead.

Charlie has the better job and, until proven otherwise, the better team.