You can tell when a team is struggling. The Marlins are a bad team and we had two chances against them. We dropped one of those two chances.
Jon Lieber continued to struggled on Friday. He dropped to 0-4, and he lost to Scott Olsen, who made his sixth career start. Olsen has a weird stat line for the season. He has a nice ERA (1.50), but a horrible WHIP (1.67) and strikeout to walk ratio (7/8). Against us, he gave up eight hits and two walks, but we could only get two runners across. The good news is, Ryan Howard continues to hit the ball well despite being slotted in the seventh spot in the lineup. If that’s not a case for Charlie Manual getting the boot, I don’t know what does. Howard was two for four with a double and run in this game. Lieber gave up four runs on six hits with eight strikeouts in seven innings and his ERA is now down to 7.99.
This afternoon was a nice game. Ryan Howard drove in three of the Phillies four runs with two homeruns and he’s now batting .345. The Phillies were also busy on the base paths and three different Phillies stole four bases. Bret Myers improved to 2-0 and he gave up two runs on six hits with three walks and five strikeouts in six innings of work. Tom Gordon continued to throw well and he struck out the side in the ninth. He earned his fifth save of the season.
The Nationals have won two straight and we’re now tied with them for third place in the NL East. The Mets have hit a tough spot so we’re only 4 1/2 games back. We host the Rockies for four games. Anything less then a split will be tough to take. Three of four would be nice. Unfortunately, this isn’t the Rockies’ team of the recent future. They’re 10-8 and they’re in first place in the NL West.
