Phillies lefthander Cole Hamels had little trouble with Florida through the 1st three innings.  But with one out and runners on 2nd and 3rd base in the fourth inning, former Phillie 3rd baseman Wes Helms tied the game with a 2 run double.  Two hitters later, leftfielder Luis Gonzalez stroked a 2 run homer to rightfield as the Marlins went to halt the Phillies 5 game winning streak with a  7-3 win on Saturday.

With the loss, the Phillies dropped back into second place, 1.2 game behind the Marlins, remained 2 1/2 games ahead of Atlanta and 3 1/2 games ahead of the Mets who won.

AP sports writer Rob Maaddi contrasted the performance of the two starters for Yahoo sports;

Hamels (5-4) lasted 5 2-3 innings, allowing seven runs and eight hits. The All-Star left-hander was coming off one of the poorest outings of his career. He gave up six runs in four innings in Philadelphia’s 15-6 win at Houston last Sunday. Hamels’ ERA rose to 3.73 from 2.61 a week ago.

“He was having a hard time establishing his breaking ball, his command was off and he threw a lot of high fastballs,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.

The Marlins pushed across four runs in the fourth to take a 4-2 lead.  Hanley Ramirez led off with a double. After Jeremy Hermida singled and [Jorge] Cantu flied out to shallow right, Wes Helms hit a two-run double to left-center to tie it at 2.

Helms, who struggled with the Phillies last year after signing a free-agent contract, was booed each time he came up.
 
Gonzalez connected with two outs to make it 4-2. It was his 350th career homer. Hamels wasn’t pleased he didn’t get a call on a 2-2 pitch to Helms. He let plate umpire Bruce Dreckman hear it after Gonzalez hit a 3-2 pitch into the right-field seats.

“I’m more disappointed in letting the team down,” Hamels said. “We just started playing well and I let them down.”

Ricky Nolasco pitched 6 2-3 strong innings….  “Nolasco was the player of the game,” Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “To get that deep in the game against a team like that was big.”

Nolasco (5-3) allowed two runs and four hits to win his fourth straight decision. The right-hander held in check a potent lineup that scored 60 runs in the previous five games.

“I just pitched to my strength,” Nolasco said. “I had a lot of things working, a good curve to left-handed hitters and a good slider to right-handers.”

The Marlins added 3 more runs off of Hamels in the sixth as 3rd baseman Cantu and centerfielder Cody Ross homered to give the Marlins 3 insurance runs.

The Phils scored single runs in the first and third innings with leftfielder Pat Burrell’s single driving in a run and with 1st baseman Ryan Howard driving in the 2nd run in the third with a ground out to 2nd base.

2nd baseman Chase Utley solo homered off of lefthanded reliever Renyel Pinto in the seventh inning for the Phillies’ final run.  The homer was Utley’s MLB leading 19th homer of the season.

Relievers Rudy Seanez and Ryan Madson finished up the last 3 1/3 innings only allowing 3 base runners on 3 hits while Seanez struck out 2 and Madson struke out 3.

For all of the scores, boxscores and recaps on Saturday’s games, click here.

Sunday’s final is a duel of lefthanders as 23 year old Andrew Miller faces 45 year old Jamie Moyer.

After the Marlins, the Cincinnati Reds come to town for 3 games starting next Monday.  Bronson Arroyo opposes Kyle Kendrick in the series opener.

For the scores, boxscores and recaps on Sunday’s games, click here.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 1:20 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, Phillies and NL East, Analysis, Predictions, etc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.