Phillies Take Two of Three from Braves, Finally Catch Mets
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It took the Phillies 159 games to do it, but with sparkling pitching performances by the Kyles, Kyle Lohse and Kyle Kendrick. a gritty offense and more clutch performances by the bullpen “A Team” tandem of J.C. Romero, Tom Gordon and Brett Myers which gave up 4 hits, 2 walks and only 1 run in 5 innings of work over the two games, the Phillies have finally caught the Mets with 5-2 and 6-4 victories over the Atlantic Braves before the charged-up, screaming, towel-waving Phillies fans at Citizen’s Bank stadium.. The Phillies and Met stand all knotted up at 87-72 atop the NL East division as the season comes down to the three dramatic final games of the regular season.
The Washington Nationals overcame a 6-2 Mets lead on Wednesday with a 5 run 5th inning and added 2 more insurance runs in the 9th off of dead-armed closer Billy Wagner for a 9-6 win. The Mets wasted 2 homers and 3 RBIs by centerfielder Carlos Betran.
On Thursday night, the St. Louis Cardinals nicked Pedro Martinez for a run in the 1st inning and two more in the 3rd for a 3-0 win over the Mets in a make-up game as Joel Pineiro, who pitched 8 great innings, and closer Jason Isringhausen combined to make the lead stand up and to hand Martinez his first loss of the season since returning from the DL.
In the NL wild card race, the San Diego Padres maintained their one game lead on the Phillies and Mets with an 11-3 rout of the Giants on Wedbnesday followed by a 9-5 pasting of the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.
It was Brett Myers on the mound to close out Thursday’s game, but for a moment the demons of Phillies past popped up. Gordon had just escaped trouble in the 7th and Romero was recipient in the 8th of a rare Chase Utley throwing error followed by his (Utley’s) start of a crushing double-play to choke-off a Braves threat before it began.
Leading off the Braves 9th was rightfielder Jeff Francoeur. Myers’ first pitch; a fastball up in Francoeurs’ wheelhouse and he took care of it — way out of Citizen’s Bank Park to leftfield to narrow the Phil’s lead to 6-4. And the visions came back; the 1964 collapse, slow-footed Greg Luzinski’s trapped fly ball in leftfield in the 1977 NLCS vs the Dodgers, or more recently, the Mets back-to-back-to-back homers off of Cole Hamels in a Phillies win this season just to name a few.
Then Myers got centerfielder Andruw Jones to ground out to Abraham Nunez playing 3rd base. One out. But then leftfielder Matt Diaz singled to leftfield. Then pinch hitter Yunel Escobar really gave us a scare.
He lit into Myers with a screaming line drive toward 3rd base with trouble written all over it. But there was Nunez leaping and spearing the drive in a highlights film catch for the 2nd out. Then Myers put the Braves out of misery striking out 2nd baseman Kelly Johnson to seal the win and the 1st place tie.
On Wednesday, the Phillies got a superb 7 inning performance from Kyle Lohse, a pinch homer from Shane Victorino and a 3 for 4 day from shortstop Jimmie Rollins who edges closer to a .300 BA to go along with 208 hits, 30 homers, 38 doubles and 38 stolen bases. Romero, Gordon and Myers took care of sealing both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s games.
On Thursday, 1st baseman Ryan Howard and leftfielder Pat Burrell took care of the lumber, each homering and driving in two runs with the Phils’ first 2 runs scoring on Atlanta throwing and fielding errors. Howard’s 44th homer, a shot rightfield capped a 4 run 1st inning and Burrell’s 30th dinger in the 3rd inning, a 2 run shot, gave the Phillies insurance which the Phillies needed as 3rd baseman Chipper Jones and 1st baseman Mark Teixeira hit back to back homers to draw the Braves to within 6-3 prior to Francoeur’s solo shot off of Myers in the 9th inning.
For the scores, boxscores and recaps on these and on all of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s games, click here and here.
With the NL East division title on the line, the Phillies entertain the Washington Nationals on Friday through Sunday for the final three games of the regular season.
On Friday, lefthander Cole Hamels goes for his 15th win opposed by Tim Redding who held the Phillies to one run over 8 innings in his last appearance. On Saturday, erratic Adam Eaton, whose start was pushed back from Wednesday, is opposed by rookie lefthander Matt Chico. In Sunday’s regular season finale, veteran lefthander Jamie Moyer goes for hs 14th win vs Jason Bergmann who held the Phillies to 2 runs, 4 hits in 6 innings in his last start against them.
For the scores, boxscores and recaps on all of Friday’s games, click here.
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