Looking Back at Last Night's Game

My Fellow Phans,

Congrats to the Phillies on their big win yesterday. It was nice to see them back Roy Halladay, at least enough to get him a win. Contreras and Romero were a little shaky in the 8th, but the story of the game had to be Brad Lidge.

Lidge worked a perfect 9th inning last night for his 2nd save of the year striking out two hitters in the process. To say Lidge looked good last would be a HUGE understatement. His slider was breaking where and when he wanted it to, and his fastball had pinpoint control. See the at-bat versus Padres’ slugger Adrian Gonzalez for further proof. We haven’t seen Lidge pitch this well since, well since 2008. Now I’m going to leave it at that because I feel I’ve said too much to possibly jinx him already.

As for the rest of the pitching: Halladay pitched 7 strong innings and what a wizardly 7 innings those were. He ended up stranding something like 11 Padres base runners. He made the big pitch when he had to. The 8th inning was a shaky one as Jose Contreras and J.C. Romero loaded the bases before Romero got an inning ending double play which was HUGE!

As for the offense, it still was not up to par. We did score 3 runs and got the victory, I’m not going to say that wasn’t important. However, our slump is still upon us offensively. The Phillies managed just 4 hits through the first 7 innings and were greatly outhit by the Padres, but they still had the lead. The Phillies haven’t scored more than 3 runs in a game since May 21st. That is a 12 game stretch of scoring less than 4 runs.

The scoring came really on just two plays. The first two on a Shane Victorino hit a 2-run home run. What made this home run important besides giving the Phillies the lead, was that it was hit on a 2-0 pitch; a good hitters’ count. Getting good swings on a pitch in a hitters’ count is always a sign of a player going well at the plate. The other offense came on a bases loaded walk to Jayson Werth. It was a close 3-2 pitch; I’m not going to deny that at all. A hitter with a lesser eye at the plate may have chased the pitch, but Werth laid off of it and worked the critical walk that gave the Phillies the lead.

Overall, it was a good game. I mean the Phillies won and that’s all that matters, right? Maybe they can shock us all and make it two in a row tonight. They say miracles happen every day right so we shall see.

Until we meet again Phillies Fans; Happy Readings and Go Phillies!

Johnny S.