Cole Hamels was dominant yet again last night allowing just 3 baserunners on 1 hit, and 2 walks in 7 innings to the Cubs. The Phillies won the game 7-1 with Ryan Madson giving up the only run in the 8th. The Phillies were able to chase Ted Lilly from the game after just 4 1/3 innings after he allowed 5 earned runs. Both Pedro Feliz and Ryan Howard hit 2 run homeruns off of Lilly before he left.
The biggest (and worst) news from the game came when Geoff Jenkins came in to the game for Shane Victorino. Victorino re-injured the calf that caused him to miss time last year. He claims that he injured it in the 5th inning when he scored on a wild pitch. I watched the 5th and 6th innings again today to see if I could what happened and it appeared that he injured it during his at-bat in the 6th. He spun awkwardly a few times when he fouled pitches off, and it was obvious that he wasn’t feeling good when he grounded out.
The Phillies placed Victorino on the 15-day DL and called up Chris Snelling from AAA Lehigh. For the time being, Jayson Werth and So Taguchi look to split time in center. With both Jimmy Rollins and Victorino out today, Geoff Jenkins is batting lead off because of his success against Jason Marquis. I’m surprised that the Phillies decided to call up Snelling. He was only batting around .200 for the Iron Pigs this season. Personally, I would have gone with Greg Golson from AA Reading. He is batting .343 in 8 games, but more importantly, he has 7 stolen bases. Right now, there is no speed in our lineup, and he would add that. Snelling has only 2 steals in 89 career big league games. Also, he is not a true centerfielder. We do not have 1 actual centerfielder on the roster now.
The game today is in the third inning right now and has just been tied 1-1 by the Cubs. Pat Burrell bobbled the ball and couldn’t make the throw home to the plate so Henry Blanco scored with ease. The Phillies secured the series win with the victory last night, and Jamie Moyer looks to get the sweep today against Jason Marquis. Already the Phils have loaded the bases in each inning and have only come away with 1 run.
