PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils continued their series with the Nationals tonight. Cole Hamels got the start and he wasn't quite Hollywood on this night, allowing 6 runs on 8 hits while striking out 7 in 6 innings. However, thanks to 3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen and a 2 homer 5 RBI night by Ryan Howard, Hamels' outing was just good enough to earn him the win. The Phils actually fell behind early as Will Nieves lined a 2 run double and Anderson Hernandez added an RBI single in the top of the 2nd for a 3-0 lead. In the bottom of the 2nd Howard crushed a solo homer to cut it to 3-1. Then in the bottom of the 3rd Jimmy Rollins singled in one run and Howard annihilated a grand slam to the 3rd deck in right field, only about the 3rd homer that has ever been hit there, for a 6-3 lead. In the top of the 4th Aberto Gonzalez tripled in a run to cut it to 6-4. In the bottom of the 4th Hamels himself slapped an RBI double for a 7-4 lead. In the top of the 6th Ronnie Belliard lined a 2 run homer off Hamels just before he could finish his last inning, cutting the lead to 7-6. In the bottom of the 6th with the bases loaded, Howard hit what appeared to be an inning ending groundout, but Gonzalez booted it allowing 2 runs to score for a 9-6 lead. From there Scott Eyre and Clay Condrey combined for a scoreless 7th, Ryan Madson rolled through the 8th, and Brad Lidge got another easy save in the 9th, thanks to a spectacular double play in which a diving Rollins flipped the ball to Chase Utley who barehanded it, tagged 2nd ,and fired to Howard at first for the 2nd out. With 9 runs on 10 hits, the Phils did a much better job with runners on base tonight just as I thought they would. As for Hamels, while it wasn't his best effort, it appeared that just he got a little fatigued. In fact he threw 106 pitches overall, mostly because his location was just a little off tonight. That is really a rare occasion for Hamels to be missing his locations and he knows how to adjust to ensure it won't happen again so I wouldn't worry to much. The important thing is that he got the 9-6 win, which moves the Phils to 27-20 overall and back into 1st place in the NL East by a half a game over the Mets