» Hamels Pitches, Burrell Powers Phillies Past Dodgers

Hamels Pitches, Burrell Powers Phillies Past Dodgers

Phillies lefthander Cole Hamels solidly outpitched his lefthanded counterpart Clayton Kershaw in a rematch of their August 12 meeting. Leftfielder Pat Burrell led the offense with a 3 for 5 game driving in 5 runs (matching his career high), including a 3 run homer, as the Phils offense pounded the Dodgers again, this time by a 9-2 score.

With the Phils win on Saturday, they moved to within 1 1/2 games of the Mets who were clubbed by the Houston Astros. The Florida Marlins remained 6 games back in 3rd place losing to Arizona. The 4th place Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals and are now 15 games back.

Hamels received long-overdue run support from the Phillies offense which put together 3 run flurries first, fifth and sixth innings, including Burrell’s 30th homer, a 3 run shot to leftfield in the first inning.

When 1st baseman James Loney lead off the Dodgers third inning with a double and catcher Russell Martin followed with a homer to leftfield to narrow the score to 3-2, one could feel; Here we go again. And when Hamels got into a 2 on, 2 out pickle in the fourth, many were on the edge of their seats. But Loney grounded to the pitcher and Hamels escaped unscathed. He went on to retire 9 of the last 11 hitters he faced as the Phillies tacked on 6 more runs and the Dodgers mounted no offense at all through the rest of the game against lefthanded reliever Scott Eyre and Rudy Seanez. Seanez was not even around long enough to work up a sweat in the ninth, retiring the side on — get this; 4 pitches.

Hamels threw 97 pitches while giving up 2 runs on 7 hits and striking out 5 to win his 11th game vs 8 losses and lowering his ERA to 3.20.

The AP report for Yahoo sports describes game highlights;

Burrell put the Phillies ahead with his 30th homer, a three-run shot down the left-field line in the first inning. He got a gift RBI double in the fifth when Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp lost a routine fly in the sun, then capped his big day with an RBI single in the sixth.

Burrell also equaled a season high by scoring three runs as Philadelphia won for the fifth time in six games… He entered the day with two RBIs in his last nine games.

It was the 10th time Burrell had five RBIs in a game. The previous time was May 11, 2007, against the Chicago Cubs.

Ryan Howard doubled and drove in two, and Shane Victorino had two RBIs for the Phillies, who have scored 17 runs in consecutive wins over the Dodgers after entering Friday night with 61 runs in 19 games (3.1 per contest) in August.

Rookie left-hander Clayton Kershaw (2-4) had his worst outing of the season as the Dodgers lost for the fourth time in five games. Kershaw, making his 15th career start, allowed a season-high six runs and seven hits in four-plus innings. He walked two and struck out five.

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

In Sunday’s game 3, Joe Blanton hopes to improve on his previous performance against the Dodgers. He is opposed by Hiroki Kuroda who held the Phils to a single run in seven innings in their previous meeting. In Monday’s final, Brett Myers goes against Chad Billingsley as the Mets follow the Dodgers into Philly for a brief, but important 2 games.