Weekly Review of the Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies week started with not surprisingly another rain out, postponing the game against their rivals the New York Mets till a later date. The next day the team arrived in St. Louis to face the Cardinals and a familiar former teammate in Kyle Lohse. The feat of beating Lohse has been difficult for the Phillies but they pulled it off in grand style. Jayson Werth hit a two run home run in the fourth inning. Then Ryan Howard stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and cranked a home run. This coupled with a strong pitching performance from Joe Blanton allowed the Phillies to win the game 6-1. The following night playing without Chase Utley the Phillies got contributions from everyone in a 10-7 win with Jayson Werth picking up another four RBI's.

That night they traveled to New York to play a quick two game series at the Mets' new Citi field. They ran into one of the best pitchers in baseball and unfortunately for the Phillies he was on a role. He shut out the Phillies for eight innings and a Phillies error in the 7th inning allowed the Mets to get the only run in the game as the Mets won 1-0. There was one glimmer of hope from the game as the struggling Chan ho Park pitched a great game. The next day brought the 45 year old Jaime Moyer to the mound but the veteran got rocked and his team could not recover from a early deficit losing the game 7-5. This meant the Phillies were swept in their first visit to Citi field but they returned home that night to face their other division for the Atlanta Braves.

This night was the widely expected return of the World Series Most Valuable Player Cole Hamels who injured his ankle a week earlier. The Phillies built up a 6 run lead early in the game and never looked back tacking on more through tout. Coupled with the great return of their ace the Phillies won the game 10-6. The next day the Phillies played an afternoon game and the offense just did not show as Javier Vazquez allowed only 2 runs over 8 innings for the Braves as the Phillies lost 6-2. The Phillies ended the week 3-3 and will play home games against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals next week.

www.mlb.com
www.phillies.com