PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils continued their series with the Marlins tonight. Cole Hamels got the start and delivered yet another subpar performance, allowing 4 runs on 5 hits in just 5 and 1/3rd innings. Meanwhile, Ryan Howard's bat finally woke up again with 4 hits and a run scored on the night, but unfortunately his teammates didn't give him much help. Chase Utley and Jayson Werth both went hitless and Howard had 3 of Phils only 5 hits after the 3rd inning. Still early on after allowing a leadoff homerun to Chris Coghlan it looked like Cole was going to cruise the rest of the way. At the same time the Phils came up with a couple of runs in the 2nd inning on an infield single and a fielder's choice for a 2-1 lead. Even after Cole got into a jam in the top of 3rd inning and allowed Florida to tie it at 2, it stilled seemed that he would be okay, as an error by Nick Johnson allowed the Phils to go back ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the inning. Then Cody Ross slammed a 2 run homer in the 6th to put the fish ahead 4-3 and that was it for Hamels and the Phils who couldn't take advantage of their opportunities the rest of the way. Both in the 7th and 8th innings the Phils had a runner on 2nd with less than 2 outs, and both times they failed to get him in. Finally in the 9th inning after Florida had pushed it to 6-3, Shane Victorino tripled and scored on a fielder's choice. It was too little too late though for the Phils. Ryan Howard did get aboard with an infield single to bring the tying run to the plate, but both Werth and Raul Ibanez flied out to end it. Utley is now just 6 for his last 32, Jayson Werth is now hitless in his last 3 games and the whole team is struggling right now to hit with runners in scoring position. I just can't understand it. There just seems to be some sort of mental block for the guys right now when they step up to the plate with a chance to knock in runs, kind of like last year in the world series. Hopefully they're just getting that out of the way now so they'll be hot if they make it into the world series this time around. Seriously though this can't go on too much longer and or they're going to make it very difficult for themselves to clinch the division. Anyway so the Phils drop to 61-47 now and just 5 games up in the NL East.