PHILLIES NEWS

This was it. This is the game that will be remembered later this season if the Phils go on to more greatness. This is game that will be remembered years from now the next time it happens. Yes it happened. For the 3rd night in the row the Phils failed to score a run and thus completed their series with the Mets without having scored a single run. If he were still alive, his whiteness, Richie Ashburn, would have something like 'You've got to be kidding me', like he did the last time this happened to the Wheeze Kids back in 1983. Of course that team went on to the world series. So there's still hope for this year's group. After all it wasn't the Met's great pitching that caused this, but rather the Phils beating themselves and a plethora of bad luck. It just seems like everything they hit hard these days winds up in someone's glove instead of going for a hit.

The funny thing is that much of these offensive struggles for the Phils have come at the expense of some great pitching performances. On this it was Cole Hamels who did everything in his power to avert a sweep. He went 6 and 1/3rd innings allowing just 3 runs on 9 hits while striking out 3. His line actually should have been even better but again bad luck intervened in the 6th inning. First Placido Polanco booted a potential inning ending double play ball. Then Cole sawed off Jose Reyes but could only watch as a double, that literally stayed fair only because Reyes broke his bat, looped into right for 2 runs. That coupled with an RBI double in the 1st inning by Jason Bay was all the Mets needed to scratch out a 3-0 win.

After suffering their 4th shutout in their last 5 games the Phils are going to have to completely erase everything that has happened this past week and move on. They just can't afford to dwell on all they head down to Florida for the weekend for a meeting with Marlins. The Phils scoreless streak needs to end there or they're going to be in big trouble. For right now at 26- 20 overall they remain in 1st place, 1.5 games up on the Atlanta Braves and if nothing else they can at least feel good about that.