There have been a lot of complaints about the Phillies as of late, from bad pitching to the lack of hitting with runners in scoring position to stupid mental mistakes. While they didn’t do much to assuage these concerns today, the team made several smart plays and feasted on a terrible outing from Cubs’ closer Carlos Marmol to take the win 4-1.
While it would be nice to say that the Phils won the game for themselves, that doesn’t tell the entire story. Cole Hamels contributed another great pitching performance, allowing just eight hits and one run over seven innings. Once again he received very little run support from his teammates, bringing him awfully close to an undeserved hard luck loss.
The Phils quickly turned their fortunes around in the ninth. With Brian Schneider and Ross Gload on base, Placido Polanco stroked a single to left center, and in a rare brilliant move from third base coach Sam Perlozzo, he waved Schneider home, just barely beating the tag to tie the score.
J-Roll would walk on a wild pitch, which brought Gload home for the lead. Ryan Howard would be intentionally walked before Jayson Werth was unintentionally walked to add onto the lead. Raul Ibanez would cap off the scoring with a bases loaded single to put the Fightins up 4-1.
Brad Lidge came in for the home half of the ninth, throwing a relatively quiet inning to get his seventh save. Although Chad Durbin got the win, I wish he could donate it to Hamels for a job well done. The starter’s season ERA is down to 3.63 after yet another impressive outing.
Tomorrow the Phils go for the series and season split as Roy Halladay takes the hill against the Cubs’ Tom Gorzelanny.
