Phillies Knot Series With Braves as Lohse, Howard Star
|
|
|
|
|
Phillies’ starter and recent acquisition Kyle Lohse quelled the Atlanta Braves with a 2 run, 8 hit performance over 6 2/3 inning while 1st baseman Ryan Howard, who hit his 37th homer of the season, and catcher Carlos Ruiz led the Phillies offense in pounding starter Buddy Carlyle for 3 runs in 1 2/3 innings in staking the Phillies to an early 3-0 lead enroute to a 5-2 win in game two.
In defeating Braves, the Phillies,gained no ground on the NL East leading Mets who defeated the Cincinnati Reds by a 11-7 score. The Phils remained 2 1/2 games behind wild card leading Arizona who pounded the San Diego Padres by a 9-1 score.
AP Writer George Henry recaps the game for Yahoo sports;
Lohse (8-12) improved to 2-0 with a 4.06 ERA in seven starts since the Phillies acquired him from Cincinnati on July 30. The right-hander, pitching into the seventh inning for the fifth time with Philadelphia, gave up eight hits, two runs and one walk in 6 2-3 innings.
Lohse left after Kelly Johnson singled with two out in the seventh. Manager Charlie Manuel brought in left-hander J.C. Romero to face Chipper Jones, who grounded out.
Howard, the 2006 NL MVP, made it 2-0 in the first with his 15th career homer off the Braves and sixth at Turner Field.
“We have three tough games to play here,” Howard said. “We needed to right the ship and get going back in the right direction.”
Carlos Ruiz, who gave the Phillies a 3-0 lead in the second with his fifth homer, had a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1 in the fifth. Aaron Rowand’s RBI single in the ninth ended the scoring.
Chipper Jones hit his 23rd homer for Atlanta, which has lost four of five and 10 of 14.
Jones’ solo homer cut the lead to 3-1 in the fourth, and he walked with the bases loaded to make it 4-2 with two out in the fifth. Other than that mistake, Lohse held his composure, retiring Willie Harris and Johnson on infield pop-ups and getting Mark Teixeira to ground out.
“This big ballpark here is nice, but Chipper made it look pretty small,” Lohse said. “They have a lot of offensive weapons, a lot of left-handers, and that makes it hard on a right-hander like me.”
Buddy Carlyle (8-6) lasted just 1 2-3 innings, giving up four hits, three runs and three walks in the shortest start of his career. The right-hander, who struck out one, has allowed 12 homers in his last 11 starts.
Manager Bobby Cox wouldn’t let Carlyle face Howard, who also hit a three-run homer off the right-hander in Atlanta’s 5-3 loss at Philadelphia on Aug. 12, a second time.
Centerfielder Aaron Rowand went 3 for 5 for the game upping his batting average to .312 and driving in his 74th RBI.
The much-maligned Phillies bullpen was nearly perfect over the final 2 1/3 innings of the game as Tom Gordon followed Romero by going clean on the Braves in the 8th inning and Brett Myers gave up one hit in the 9th to post his 14th save of the season. For those counting, the bullpen has given up but 1 run in 4 2/3 innings so far during the Braves series.
The Phillies continue to shuffle and shuttle bullpen pitchers between the bg club and the minors. AP’s George Henry reports on Phillies’ latest roster moves;
Philadelphia made three moves before the game, claiming catcher Pete LaForest off waivers from San Diego and recalling RHPs Geoff Geary and John Ennis from Triple-A Richmond.
For the scores, boxscores and recaps on this and all of Tuesday’s games, click here.
The Phillies hope to win this series by two out of three as surprising rookie Kyle Kendrick goes for his 9th win against 15 game winner Tim Hudson in Wednesday’s series finale.
The Phillies have the day off on Thursday before heading home to start a 3 game series against the Florida Marlins followed by a 4 game set against the Colorado Rockies.
For the scores, boxscores and recaps on all of Wednesday’s games, click here.
del.icio.us |
digg |
Furl |
Reddit |
YahooMyWeb |