Phillies Unleash Offensive Fury to Pound Atlanta
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With Sunday’s big offensive blow out win, the Phils take a 3 1/2 game lead in the Nl East over 2nd place Atlanta into All Star break. The 3rd place Mets go into All Star break 11 back of the Phils and 1 game above .500 after losing to San Francisco. 4th place Washington is 11 1/2 back with an even .500 record after shutting out Colorado.
It hasn’t been very often over the last couple of seasons that the offense arrived at the same game as the pitching. Usually, they post a couple/few runs and then hand it to their pitching staff of aces to carry them the rest of the way. The formula has worked often with a staff of aces like Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Hamels, Roy Oswalt (on the DL) or Joe Blanton (on DL most of the season), rookie Vance Worley and Kyle Kendrick, but not always or the Phillies’ wins total would be up in the 70s.
on July 11. The Phillies Nation blog describes Sunday’s Phillies blowout of the Braves:
…The Phillies’ offense showed up on the same day as Cole Hamels. Hamels put together the third brilliant starting pitching performance of the weekend for the Phils, who took the rubber match from Atlanta… as a sellout crowd sent the Braves into the break with a mocking round of the Tomahawk Chop. Hamels allowed one run on only three hits and two walks in eight strong innings of work, setting down the last 13 Braves he faced. However, Hamels’ electrifying effort was
somewhat unnecessary[augmented] as the Phillies tagged the Braves’… pitching staff for 14 runs and 20 hits, with every starting position player recording at least one base hit and scoring at least one run. The Braves struck first when Dan Uggla doubled and scored on a Ryan Howard error in the top of the second, but once Hamels got out of that inning, he’d only allow two baserunners for the rest of the game. Starting in the bottom of the second, the Phillies offense started battling back, throwing up 14 unanswered runs in support of their starting pitcher. [Substitute centerfielder] John Mayberry tied it when the first of his three doubles scored Domonic Brown in the second. The Phils added two more in the third, helped by a Dan Uggla error, and another run in the fourth on a Jimmy Rollins single. The last two innings, however, saw 18 Phillies come to the plate and 10 more runs show up on the board.
The trio of shortstop Rollins, Mayberry Jr. and rightfielder Brown each had 3 hits to go along with Martinez’s 4 hits, while 2nd baseman Chase Utley, 1st baseman Howard and Ibanez each had 2 hits apiece. Mayberry Jr. drove in 4 runs slamming 3 doubles. Brown collected 2 RBIs. Lowe was battered for 10 hits and 4 runs in six innings as the Braves fed 2 of their young bullpen hands to the wolves — which included 2 subs who carried hot bats in this series final.
The AP game recap for Yahoo sports provides more on the multitude of highlights from Sunday’s offensive outburst.
For all of Sunday’s scores and recaps, click here.
All Star break begins on Monday and the Phils don’t return to action until Friday when they oppose the Mets for 3 games over next weekend.
For all of Tuesday’s MLB All Star game action, click here.
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