The Phillies had their 3 game win string halted despite a decent seven inning outing by lefthander Cole Hamels and another early inning offensive explosion featuring a 3 for 5 game with a homer 3 RBIs for 2nd baseman Chase Utley and homers by shortstop Wilson Valdez, 1st baseman Ryan Howard and leftfielder Raul Ibanez as the Phils pounded Minnesota starter Kevin Slowey who lasted 1 2/3 innings.  After Hamels was pounded for 3 runs in the first inning, he cruised through the next 5 innings retiring 12 Twins in a row before 1st baseman  Justin Morneau homered leading off the sixth.  Then Hamels retired the next 3 hitters to end the sixth and only gave up leadoff single in the seventh.   Leading by 9-4 going into the ninth, the Phillies bullpen imploded as the Twins scored 5 runs, 4 of them on two 2 run homers, to tie the game. The teams traded single runs in the tenth.  But the Twins blugeoned reliever Danys Baez for the 3 winning runs in the eleventh as the bullpen failed the Phillies in a wild, nightmarish 13-10 loss to Minnesota.

With the loss, the Phils dropped to 4 1/2 games behind NL East division leading Atlanta who would their inter-league game, but remained 3 games behind the Mets who dropped their game to the Yankees.

Phillies bats continued in an early inning groove scoring 7 runs against Slowey and and 1 run against reliever Jeff Manship through the third inning.  But after Ibanez’s homer, Manship gave up only 1 other hit over the remainder of his 4 1/3 innings.    The 2 teams clubbed 9 homers between them.

The Phillies scored their 9th run in the seventh on Jayson Werth’s solo homer and, after the Twins rallied to tie in the ninth and take a 10-9 lead in the tenth, pinch hitter Ross Gload tied the game in the Phils tenth.  Then Minnesota knocked in 3 runs to go ahead for good in the eleventh.

Lidge looked more like the 2009 Lidge in blowing his 1st lead of 2010.  One must wonder how demoralizing a loss such as this is for an offense just starting to recover from incredible 3 week doldrums.

For those wishing to read more about the gory details of wasted offense due to bullpen disaster, click here for the AP recap.

To view the scores of all of Saturday’s MLB games, click here.

In Sunday’s series final, ace Roy Halladay is opposed by former Yankee Carl Pavano.  Next into Philly for 3 games — the Cleveland Indians.

To view all of Sunday’s games, click here.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 7:03 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary
Phillies and NL East, Analysis, Predictions, etc
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