Braves Top Phillies As Lidge Blows Another
|
|
|
|
|
The Phillies offense came out in slumber mode on Saturday but scored enough off of Atlanta’s Kenshin Kawakami to give lefthander Cole Hamels a shot to win his 1st game in 3 starts. The Phils scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings after Atlanta took an early 2-0 lead on catcher Brian McCann’s 3rd inning homer off of Hamels. Rightfielder Jayson Werth belting his 24th homer to drive in the lead run which 3 relievers clung to until closer Brad Lidge took over in the ninth. But a leadoff single, a bobbled pop-up sacrifice bunt and wild throw into rightfield — both errors by Lidge and the game was tied at 3-3. After 2 subsequent walks and a strikeout, the Braves topped the Phillies by a 4-3 score on an RBI single to leftfield by 2nd baseman Omar Infante and tacked another loss and blown save on Lidge.
With the loss, the Phils NL East division lead over 2nd place Florida dropped to 4 games as the Marlins had their game with Colorado postponed due to rain. Their lead over the 3rd place Braves dropped to 5 games as well. The 4th place Mets remained 12 games behind having lost an extra-inning game to San Francisco.
This latest blown game by Lidge, coupled with Brett Myers’ eye injury — the possibility that there could be more behind the injury than literally meets the eye, I’ll go along with Philly.com’s Paul Hagen. Hagen voiced, before anyone knew about Myers’ eye injury and 2 subsequent stories of how it happened, that Wagner is worth the Phillies’ consideration.
Hagen wrote on Friday:
FACT: The Phillies appear confident that getting Brett Myers and J.C. Romero back from the disabled list will be enough to arm their bullpen for the stretch run.
Opinion: That’s a pretty big leap of faith.
There’s no guarantee that Romero will be healthy again this year; Wagner would be another option to close if Brad Lidge continues to struggle; teams they could face in the postseason - the Dodgers come to mind - might be interested. So this would be a preemptory move.
How prophetic merely a day later.
After Hamels went six innings giving McCann’s third inning 2 run shot, 1 of 3 hits he gave in the game while walking 4 and striking out 2, lefthanded reliever Scott Eyre and Chad Durbin combined to get through the seventh inning without serious problem. Reliever Ryan Madson made short work of the Braves in the eighth on 9 pitches allowing only a single. The
The Phils failed to plate additional runs in the seventh inning despite runners on 2nd and 3rd base with 1 out following Werth’s homer. Ben Francisco struck out pinch hitting for Hamels and shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who took an 0 for 4 collar for the game, grounded out to end the inning.
In the eighth, with centerfielder Shane Victorino at 3rd with none out following his leadoff walk, a stolen base and catcher’s throwing error, and Werth walked intentionally with 2 outs, rightfielder Raul Ibanez, who went 2 for 4, grounded out in a clutch situation to end the inning.
Then Lidge took over in the ninth for an UGLY finish worthy of Mitch Williams.
AP Sports reporter Charles Odum describes another Lidge disaster for Yahoo sports:
…Following Garret Anderson’s leadoff single…. Lidge bobbled a sacrifice by Matt Diaz before making a wild throw to first that bounced into foul territory in right field, allowing Anderson to score the tying run as Diaz advanced to third.
Lidge then issued an intentional walk to Adam LaRoche and walked pinch-hitter Greg Norton to load the bases with no outs. Ryan Church struck out before Infante’s single to left.
For the scores of all of Saturday’s games, click here.
The Phillies hope to salvage 2 of 3 games against the Braves as young rookie-of-the-year candidate lefthander J.A. Happ is opposed by Javier Vazquez for the Braves.
The Phils have Monday off before coming home for 3 games against Arizona followed by 4 games in New York against the Mets and 3 at Pittsburgh vs the Pirates.
For all of Sunday’s games, click here.
del.icio.us |
digg |
Furl |
Reddit |
YahooMyWeb |