The Phillies offense continued its brutally enemic output squandering another fine outing by ace lefthander Cole Hamels.  They scored just 3 runs on 5 hits, although Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley walked 4 in his seven inning stint.  With the score knotted at 3-3 and Chad Durbin on the mound in the tenth inning, catcher Russell Martin and centerfielder Matt Kemp pounded RBI doubles as the Dodgers passed the Phillies in extra innings by a 5-3 score on Thursday.

As of this blog post, the Phils remained in 2nd place dropping to 1 1/2 games behind the Mets pending the results of the game with San Francisco later in the evening.  The loss dropped the Phillies record to 16-16 for the season.

After Hamels retired the Dodgers on a strikeout/doubleplay in the first inning, the Phillies put some heat on Billingsley in the bottom of the first.  Shortstop Jimmy Rollins slammed a leadoff double to rightfield and moved to 3rd base on centerfielder Shane Victorino’s sacrifice bunt to the pitcher.  Billingsley walked 2nd baseman Chase Utley on 4 pitches and 1st baseman Ryan Howard scored Rollins with a sacrifice fly to centerfield.  But that was all the scoring the Phils could put on the board despite having Billingsley on the ropes in the second and fifth innings.

In the second inning, Rollins squandered a 2 out, 2nd and 3rd base opportunity by fouling out to 3rd base.   In the fifth, the Phillies squandered a 1 out, 1st and 3rd base opportunity as Victorino struck out swinging with catcher Carlos Ruiz, the runner on 3rd, taking off attempting to steal home hoping for lightning to strike twice on Dodger catcher Martin.  It was not to be as Ruiz found himself out on a weird run-down involving the catcher, 1st baseman, shortstop and 3rd baseman. 

Meanwhile, Hamels held the Dodgers at bay other than the tying run which scored in the second inning on shortstop Rollins’ fielding error and James Loney’s leadoff seventh inning homer to put them up by 2-1.

Hamels left after seven innings having thrown 110 pitches giving up the 2 runs, only 1 was earned on 7 hits.  He walked 1 and struck out 9.  The Dodgers collected 13 hits for the game.  Reliever Ryan Madson held off the Dodgers in the eighth despite 2 hits and a throwing error by leftfielder  Raul Ibanez. 

But Brad Lidge took over to pitch the nineth and the Dodgers upped their lead to 3-1 on a run on 2 hits.  Matt Kemp, one of 2 Dodgers to have a 3 hit game, slammed a 1 out triple and scored on 3rd baseman Casey Blake’s sacrifice fly.

But, after Billingsley left after seven innings and reliever Cory Wade set the Phils down in order in the eighth.

Billingsley’s line against the Phils was 1 run on 3 hits, while walking 4 and striking out 9.  He threw 123 pitches through 7 innings.  It turned out that neither starter was in on the final decision.

The Phils tied the game with 2 out in the ninth off of Jonathan Broxton as Ibanez singled to centerfield and pinch hitter Greg Dobbs walked.  Catcher Ruiz followed with a 2 run RBI double to tie the game and drive it to extra innings.

Reliever Chad Durbin entered to pitch the tenth and retired the first 2 Dodgers he faced.  But then he walked Andre Ethier who scored on Martin’s double.  And Martin, the other Dodger with with 3 hits in the game, himself scored on Kemp’s double providing >os Angeles with it’s winning margin.

Broxton, who blew a save opportunity on Ruiz’s game-tying nineth inning double, was credited with the win while Durbin was charged with the loss.  Reliever Ramon Troncoso, who notched his 2nd save of the season, set the Phils down easily in the tenth striking out Ryan Howard swinging to end the game.

For all of the results of Thursday’s games, click here.

The Phillies head to Washington, by way of meeting the President at the White House.  They play a 4 game series with the Nationals, including a day/night doubleheader on Saturday.  Joe Blanton is scheduled to oppose lefthander John Lannan in Friday’s opener.  Hopefully, meeting the President will sufficiently fire up Jimmy Rollins such that he starts setting the table as the Phils sure could use a sweep in D.C.  In Saturday’s doubleheader, Brett Myers faces another lefthander, Scott Olsen in the day game while young lefthander J.A. Happ is currently scheduled to make his first start of the season opposing Daniel Cabrera in the nightcap.

For all of Friday’s and Saturday’s games, click here and here.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary
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