PHILLIES NEWS

After essentially stealing 2 of 3 games from the Mets, the Phils returned to the Bank at last tonight to begin a series with the Boston Red Sox, currently the AL's best team record wise. Joe Blanton got the start and pitched well allowing just 2 runs on 5 hits in 7 very good innings. Unfortunately the Phils scored just 1 run on 2 hits off Jon Lester through those 7 innings and thus would again need some late game heroics to pull out the win. The Phils actually had the early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 2nd as Raul Ibanez singled and scored on a fielder's choice. In the top of the 4th Kevin Youkillis struck back with a solo homer to knot it up at 1. In the top of the 5th J.D Drew got booed as always, and apparently it didn't affect him as he slammed a solo homer for a 2-1 lead. From there Chan Ho Park and J.C Romero combined to get the Phillies to the 9th with score still 2-1. The Phils then caught a break as regular Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon was not available to pitch tonight, leaving Ramon Ramirez to close the game. With one out and nobody on Ramirez fired a fast ball right down the middle to Ryan Howard who crushed it for a game tying solo homer. From there the Phils bullpen rolled through 2 more scoreless innings to run their streak to 14 in a row. Then after Greg Dobbs narrowly missed a walkoff homer in the bottom of the 12th, the bullpen finally ran out of magic in the top of 13th. There Kyle Kendrick, forced into duty in place of the now injured Scott Eyre(apparently he strained his calf muscle last night while throwing exactly 2 pitches), allowed 3 runs on a single by Jacoby Ellsbury, a sac fly by Nick Green, and a single by Mike Lowell. The Phils had no answer in the bottom of the inning and so the Sox got the win 5-2. It's a tough loss for the Phils but they gave it there all once again and you can't fault them for that. What has happened to Kyle Kendrick? He was so good when the Phils first brought him up late in 2007, and for most of last season as a member of the rotation. How has he gone from that to being this bad? I hope for his sake he figures out where it all went wrong before too long. In the meantime you have to hope Scott Eyre get's well quickly because the Phils won't win much with Kendrick opening the floodgates every other night. Just when it seemed he was back on track Jimmy Rollins went 0 for 6 tonight. Hopefully that's just because Jon Lester was that good tonight. Anyway so the Phils drop to 35-24 overall but thanks to the Met's losing via a walkoff error if you will, the Phils remain 4 games up in the NL East.