It's been a rough start to the 2nd half for the Phils but this afternoon made it a little easier take. Cole Hamels took the mound for the Phils and provided yet another brilliant effort with 8 scoreless innings, while allowing just 1 hit and striking out 7. Unfortunately like the rest of the Phils starters lately, he received no support from his teammates. Through 8 innings they had 8 hits to the Cardinals 1, and put runners in scoring position, in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th innings but try as they might they just couldn't get that last hit they needed to cash in. Ultimately the Cardinals couldn't either. After Hamels finished his night, Ryan Madson looked pretty good in tossing a scoreless 9th inning. Then Chad Durbin was brilliant in the 10th inning, retiring Albert Pujols and Matt Holiday in succession to push the game to an 11th.
There the Phils finally got off the canvas. Placido Polanco slammed a leadoff homer. Then with one out Raul Ibanez walked, Ryan Howard singled, and Jayson Werth followed with a double to score Ibanez for a 2-0 lead. The Phils should have extended their lead from there, but Brian Schneider grounded out with the bases loaded and Cody Ransom flied out with runners on 2nd and 3rd. So that left Brad Lidge to protect a 2-0 lead in the home half of the 11th. After starting the inning with a walk he managed to retired the next 3 batters without too much difficulty and the Phils finally had a win St. Louis. It's nice to avoid the sweep but simply avoiding sweeps won't keep them afloat the rest of the season. Changes will need to be made it is just a question of which. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
2 comments:
Although Cole Hamels didnt get the win I'm happy he didnt get the loss because he has been pitching wonderfully lately and it seems that he never gets any run support...now that I think about it noone of the pitchers get run support. Its nice to finally break up that losing streak. Maybe a little offense could keep that going.
-to ph1llysports
yeah the pitchers haven't been getting any support but have pitched. If they could just come up with any kind of consistent offense they could easily string together some wins
Post a Comment