PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils traveled to New York tonight to begin a key series with the Mets. J.A Happ got the start and provided less than his best effort, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits. Against anyone other than Johan Santana that might have been enough to help the Phils win, but tonight it wasn't and this despite the fact that the Phils homered off Santana 4 times. On a night when the two teams combined for 7 homers, David Wright got it all started with a solo shot in the bottom of the 2nd for a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the 3rd Carlos Beltran belted a 2 run homer for a 3-0 lead. In the top of the 4th Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez combined for back to back solo homers to cut the lead to 3-2. In the top of the 6th Jimmy Rollins slapped a 2 run homer to put the Phils ahead 4-3. In the bottom of the 6th Santana himself doubled in one run and Alex Cora singled in another for a 5-4 lead. In the bottom of the 7th Ryan Church lined a solo homer for a 6-4 lead. In the top of the 8th Chase Utley slugged the last homer of the night to cut it to 6-5. Finally in the top of the 9th, JRoll leadoff with a single, but Matt Stairs followed by grounding into a fielder's choice leaving him safe at first and JRoll out at 2nd. Both Pedro Feliz, and Greg Dobbs then failed to get Stairs home to tie it up as Frankie "K-Rod" Rodriguez notched his 16th save of the season. So again the Phils had the lead late and again they could not hold it. This time, the culprit was probably just jet lag and frankly a rare good hitting night by the shorthanded Mets. It was uplifting though to see JRoll rack up 3 hits, a run scored, 2 RBIs, and 6 total bases. Hopefully this means he is coming out of the slump finally, but he'll have keep consistently playing like this. In the end the pitching just wasn't quite good enough for the Phils tonight, but with Cole Hamels on the mound, it should be tomorrow night. So the Phils drop to 33-23 overall and back to just 2 games up on the Mets in the NL East.