The Phils finished their series with the Bluejays this afternoon looking to win two in a row for the first time in a while. Jamie Moyer got the start and was good enough scattering 4 runs on 5 hits over 5 solid innings to earn his 252nd career victory, which moves him ahead of the great Bob Gibson on the all-time wins list. Moyer can thank the bullpen and timely hitting for this one. The bullpen went 4 scoreless in relief of Moyer and the Phils surged ahead for good in the top of the 4th, just in time to qualify Moyer for the win. Early on however, things didn't look quite as good. Aaron Hill homered in the bottom of the 1st, Jose Bautista homered in the bottom of the 2nd, and Hill homered again in the bottom of the 3rd, to put Toronto ahead 4-1 heading into the 4th inning. There with a little luck and one big hit the Phils pushed ahead. First a perfect drag bunt by Eric Bruntlett loaded the bases with no one out for Carlos Ruiz. Ruiz hit a sharp ground ball a few pitches later, which Scott Rolen stupidly threw to second instead of home,allowing Pedro Feliz to score, and after a perfect takeout slide by Bruntlett, ruining any chance for a double play. Next the "Flyin Hawaiian" Shane Victorino hit a sac fly to cut it to 4-3. Finally, Chase Utley cleared the bases with a triple to put the Phils up 5-4. From there, after Moyer got out of a jam in the 5th, the Phils bullpen took over. Chan Ho Park rolled through 6th and 7th innings, Ryan Madson tossed a scoreless 8th, and Brad Lidge got the save in the 9th, but only after allowing the first to batters to reach base. Still, it was good to see him looking like last year's Lidge for a change. It also was nice to see the Phils take not just the game today, but the series from the Jays. Now if only they could do that at home. Anyway, so it looks the like the Phils bullpen will be just fine after all if it can just get healthy. Hopefully, now that interleague play is over, the Phils lineup will go back to normal, although it won't really be the same again until Raul Ibanez comes back from the DL. Finally, as for the rotation, I would say the Phils appear to have 4 solid starters right now, in Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, J.A Happ, and Jamie Moyer. However, Antonio Bastardo hasn't looked at all major league ready his last few times out. He looked good before, but really all he was doing was throwing fastball after fastball and batters just weren't hitting them. That's pretty much still all he is doing, except they're hitting them now. It might be time to bring someone else up from AAA in his place and I would say at most he'll get maybe one more start. Anyway so with the win the Phils move to 39-34 overall and now back up to 2.5 games up in the NL East.
2 comments:
Woo look at that:back to back wins. I never would have thunk it after the way they've been playing but I certainly hope they keep up their winning ways.
-to ph1llysports
yeah i hope so too
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