PHILLIES NEWS

Once again without Cole Hamels or Adam Eaton(he's out with shoulder problems) in the rotation , the Phils were forced to look elsewhere to fill the 5th spot in the rotation, recalling Fabio Castro from triple A. If you remember, Castro started the season as the Phils middle reliever, but struggled so much they sent him back down to triple A, where he's been until now. Today he was much better than he had been back then. As usual, he had a little trouble finding the strikezone, but still managed to hold the Dodgers to 1 run on 2 hits, while striking out 4 in 5 innings of work. Unfortunately, the Phils offense was unable to support him, scoring just one run of their own on a double by Pat Burrell, among just 4 hits off Dodger starter Chad Billingsley. The Phils bullpen then could not keep it close, as J.C Romero allowed a run on 2 hits in the 7th inning, and Tom Gordon was pasted for 3 runs on 2 hits in 8th inning while failing to record an out. This inning became particularly crushing as the phils were only trailing 2-1 at the time and Tad Iguchi later hit a solo homer in the bottom of the inning which would have tied it, had Gordon been able to hold the Dodgers in check. In the end Dodger closer, Takashi Saito, proved too strong for the Phils in the 9th and they lost 5-2, to drop to 65-60, still 5 games behind the Mets in the NL East, but now 2 games behind the Padres in the wildcard. Thus, life still sucks.