PHILLIES NEWS

The Phils traveled to Washington tonight to begin a series with the lowly Nationals, the perfect team against which to end their current 4 game losing streak. However, the Nationals fought hard as usual and that expected end to the losing streak almost had to wait a night. Pedro Martinez got the start and performed admirably, allowing 3 runs on 7 hits in 6 and 2/3rd's innings. Meanwhile, the Phils crushed 5 homers, 4 of them off Washington's starter John Lannan. First Raul Ibanez slugged a solo homer in the top of the 5th inning. Next Jayson Werth slammed a solo homer, Ibanez smashed his 2nd, and Carlos Ruiz destroyed a solo homer, in the top of the 7th. Finally in the top of the 8th Chase Utley tomahawked a solo homer into the upper deck to put the Phils ahead 5-3. Brett Myers again pitched a scoreless 8th inning and then in came Brad Lidge to get the save. Lidge got 1 out and then loaded the bases. That was enough for Charlie Manuel who promptly pulled Lidge from the game in favor of Ryan Madson. Madson thankfully struck out Ryan Zimmerman and got Adam Dunn to ground out from there to preserve the 5-3 win. Now does this mean Madson will be the closer now? According to Charlie Manuel it does not. At least not yet anyway. I guess we'll see. With his 2 homers tonight Ibanez now has 30 on the season, as does Chase Utley now with his homer tonight. That gives the Phils 3 lefthanded hitters with 30 homers(Ryan Howard is the other), making them the first team to put together such a roster of sluggers in quite some time. With Jayson Werth at 32 homers now the Phils also have 4 hitters with 30 homers for the 1st time in their history. The last team to have 4 hitters with 30 homers or more was the White Sox in 2006. So the Phils made some good history tonight and you just have to hope they continue to play well like this and take care of the Nationals. Anyway so the Phils now move to 78-58 overall and remain 6 games up in the NL East.