Phillies Triumph Over Nationals

The Phillies have a couple of problems going into the postseason but, for Wednesday night they all disappeared. This night they had a shutdown closer in Ryan Madson. They also had an ace on the mound in Cliff Lee. Finally, they had their resurgent slugger in the outfield back at it in Raul Ibanez. They also had a victory over the Nationals in a score of 6-4.

Cliff Lee pitched seven innings allowing five runs as he struggled to find his control. But, the Phillies offense bailed him out in the eighth inning. With the game tied 4-4 in the top of the eighth Jayson Werth hit a leadoff home run. Pedro Feliz followed that with another solo shot to give the Phillies' back-to-back homers and a 6-4 lead. In the ninth there was some danger for
The Phillies showed that they can get the bats going when they need to. It appears in Ibanez particularly that he has caught fire after a terrible August in which he batted .193. He now has 3 homers and a .321 batting average in September.

With the win the Phillies held on to their six game lead in the NL East. The team appears to have the division title locked up for another year as they continue to win games down the stretch. On the other hand the Nationals continued to hold their place for the first pick in the upcoming draft as they held a lead of seven games on both the Pirates and the Royals in the loss category. I know it's a sad game in Washington but, at least they can root for that on a night where the Phillies had all the answers to the Nationals questions.