The great thing about following this year’s Philadelphia Phillies team is that whenever you have a real tough loss like last night, you usually have one of Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay or Cole Hamels going the next day. There’s never carry over or potential for long losing streaks. Tonight was further proof of that.
Jimmy Rollins led off the game with his 37th career leadoff homer, moving him into 5th all time in that category. But over the next six innings, the two teams played to standstill. Cliff Lee was, of course, very good throwing seven innings of two-run, three hit ball, striking out seven. His 18 inning scoreless streak was broken in the second by a two run Paul Goldschmidt homer, but otherwise he cruised.
Joe Saunders cruised as well for the first six innings, but as the British would say, that’s when things went pear shaped. The Phillies plated seven runs over the 7th and 8th innings to pull away and make what was a very close contest into a rout. Wilson Valdez, Ben Francisco, John Mayberry (who had three hits), Jimmy Rollins, Brian Schneider and Shane Victorino all had RBIs in those innings to help the Phils pull away.
In fact, Chase Utley was the only Phillies starter to not have a hit tonight. The Phils send Vance Worley to the hill tomorrow for the rubber match, against the D’Backs top starter, Ian Kennedy.