PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils continued their series with the Reds tonight. Rodrigo Lopez made his 2nd start for the Phils and was pretty sharp again allowing just 2 runs on 5 hits, before being forced to leave after the 5th inning with a muscle strain, which hopefully was only a minor tweak and nothing serious. Anyhow, while Lopez pitched well, the Phils could only get him one run and seemed destined to lose again, before tying it up in the 6th. So it would come down to some late heroics to decide this one, something the Phils haven't really displayed at home thus far this season. Cincinnati got it all started in the top of the 4th, as Lance Nix slapped a 2 run single. The Flyin Hawaiian, Shane Victorino, answered in the bottom of the inning, singling, stealing 2nd and scoring on a single by Ryan Howard. Later in the bottom of the 6th, Jayson Werth slammed a 2 out solo homer to knot it up at 2. From there after Ryan Madson pitched perfect 8th and 9th innings, the Phils finally put together another rally in the bottom of the 9th. Pedro Feliz led off with a single, Jimmy Rollins worked a walk to move Feliz to 2nd, and Victorino blooped a single to right field to score Feliz with the winning run to cap off the 3-2 Phils win. Madson looked to be back to his old unhittable self again in those two innings today which is a great sign for the Phils bullpen. Werth is tearing the cover off the ball right now, with now 6 homers in his last 11 games, which somewhat makes up for Raul Ibanez not being in the lineup. It was nice to see Victorino come through in the 9th. He was probably the Phils most clutch hitter late last season, so to see him get another clutch hit today, could be a sign of the good things to come for the Phils. Anyway so the Phils move to 44-38 now and still 2 games up in the NL East.