PHILLIES NEWS

Remember Mitch "the wild thing" Williams, well tonight (Tuesday) the Phillies had a night that even he would have categorized as wild. The game started innocently enough. In bottom of the 1st inning the Phillies, fueled by a Chase Utley solo homer, extending his hitting streak to 25 games, scored 3 runs for an early 3-0 cushion and seemed as if the Phils might route the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks. After 2 innings it was more of the same as the phils still led by 3 at 4-1. Then in 3rd innings wild things began to happen. Phils starter Ryan Madson threw a record 4 wild pitches in the inning, but somehow only allowed 1 run to score. Things would not get much better for Madson, as he would leave the game after just 4 innings even though remarkably he only had given up 2 runs on 5 hits. At this point it was 4-2 and the Phillies bullpen kept it that way until the 7th inning. In the top of the 7th Luis Gonzalez homered off reliever Rheal Cormier to cut the lead to 4-3. In the 8th inning things got worse for the Phils. Although reliever Arthur Rhodes retired the first 2 batters in the innings, he could not get the 3rd out, allowing Carlos Quentin to reach base, so in came closer Tom Gordon to bail him out. Unfortunately Gordon to could get enough get out of the inning with out giving up the tying run, although upon further review he should have. After Quentin reached base he attempted to steal 2nd base, initially he slid into 2nd safely, but he went off the bag and was tagged by Jimmy Rollins, and thus should have been out to end the inning. However, umpire Joe Young never saw Quentin go off the base and called him safe. As a result instead leaving the 8th with a 4-3 Gordon was forced to continue pitching and ended surrendering a game tying triple to Jeff Davanon. Then he got himself into a bases loaded jam, but somehow got out if with the scored still tied. Then in 9th inning as if the 8th wasn't wild enough for him he got into another bases loaded jam this time with no outs, and guess who, Carlos Quentin at the plate. Quentin grounded into what appeared to be a force out at home plate, but as he gobbled up the ball and began to throw home David Bell stumbled on the infield grass and threw wildly, pulling catcher Mike Lieberthal off the plate, and allowing Chad Tracy to sneak across with the go ahead run, for a 5-4 lead. At this point it seemed like the Phillies chances for a win had slipped away, but Chase Utley would let his team die. In a scene reminescent of Ryne Sandberg at Wrigley, Utley stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 9th with one out and crushed his 2nd homer of the night off Jorge Julio to tie the game at 5 and send it into extra innings. Then in the 10th inning Utley had a chance to win the game, but flew out to center field with two on and one out. With the way things have been going for the Phils, this missed opportunity was sure to haunt them and it did, as guess who Carlos Quentin homered in the top of the 11th inning off Ryan Franklin, for an eventual 6-5 Diamondacks win. The phillies are now 7 games out in the wild card race and fading fast. It seems almos inevitable now, that as the July 31 trade deadline approaches, the will be sellers rather than buyers. Well, happy trails everyone.