PHILLIES NEWS

Having been totally destroyed by the Red Sox the last two days the Phils desperately needed a gem from Cole Hamels and on this afternoon he obliged. Just as he's been most of the season he was sharp and his fastball was buzzing. In other words he was on and you don't want to face someone like Cole when he's at his best. For 7 innings Boston sure didn't look too happy to see him as they managed just 1 run on 5 hits and struck out 8 times. Meanwhile the Phils had a big 4th inning against Tim Wakefield. Ryan Howard slapped a 1 out double and scored on a single by Jayson Werth. Raul Ibanez followed by crushing a 2 run homer. Then Ben Francisco doubled and scored a single by Juan Castro. Finally, Carlos Ruiz grounded into a double play to end the inning, but the damage, 4 runs on 5 hits, had already been done and was more than enough to propel to his 6th win. It was not without some complications though.

Thanks to a long at bat by Victor Martinez in the 6th Hamels was forced to leave the game after the 7th inning. Jose Contreras replaced him in the 8th and allowed back to back 1 out singles. Fortunately, just when it looked like Boston was going to mount a rally Adrian Beltre grounded sharply to 3rd, leading to an around the horn double play to the end the inning. Werth then manufactured a run in the 9th by walking, stealing two bases, and scoring on a sac fly for a 5-1 lead. The run proved to be huge as J.C Romero allowed an unearned run and issued a walk, before being replaced by Brad Lidge. Lidge struck out Darnell Mcdonald but then Daniel Nava, yes the rookie, blooped a Lidge slider up the middle for another run to cut the lead to 5-3 and put the tying run at the plate in the person of Marco Scutaro. Fortunately Lidge got Scutaro to end the threat and the snap the Phils losing streak at 3. It will be tough to string together some wins from here as they head to the Bronx for a series with the Yankees but at least they avoided the sweep.