PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils continued their series with the Braves tonight looking to rebound from their tough 10 inning loss last night. Cole Hamels got the start and looked to be cruising through 2 and 1/3rd innings, but then wheels came loose completey, and he wound up allowing 7 runs on 9 hits in just 4 innings. Meanwhile the Phils scored just one run in that time on a sac fly by Greg Dobbs in the 4th inning and needless to say they lost badly 11-1 as Jair Jurrjens went 7 good innings, holding the Phils to just 1 run on 1 hit. In fact the Phils had exactly 2 hits all night long which is just awful, although I am not sure they were really trying all that much after they fell behind 9-1 so maybe that explains it. You know for a team that had been struggling to hit coming into this series, the Braves are certainly making it look easy against the Phils. They had 11 runs on 14 hits all together and everyone in the lineup contributed. Martin freaking Prado, had another 2 hits and 2 RBIs, Chipper Jones had 2 hits and 3 RBIs, Matt Diaz had 3 hits and 2 RBIs, including a homer, I mean the list just goes on and on. It just goes to show the heightened the level of intensity teams always play with when they're facing the world champions. The Phillies aren't the hunter anymore ,they're the hunted and when you get to that point everyone you play is going to give the best they've got. So to win the Phils have to play well night in and night out, they can't just coast through games playing at an average level and expect to figure out a way to win in the end like they did last season. Right now they're just coasting again and not surprisingly losing games. If they are ever going to get out of this funk they will have to raise their play to a high level and keep it there consistently night in and night out. What has happened to Cole Hamels? After tonight's shellacking he's now just 4-5 overall with a 4.98 ERA. Is this really same guy who won NLCS and world series MVP last season? He seems to have suddenly lost his velocity and forgotten how think his way through innings. He's just going up there throwing the same pitches over and over again instead of making adjustments throughout the game to keep batters fooled from start to finish. Hopefully this isn't a harbinger of the things to come this season for Hamels. Anyway so the Phils drop to 39-36 overall now and just .5 games up in the NL East.