Now that we are done with the latest stretch of interleague play, it is time to reload. The Phillies started their new look yesterday by demoting Brett Myers to AAA. Myers has been struggling all year except for 2 starts. I have been saying for a while that they needed to do something with him. I wasn’t expecting to see him go to the minors, but that might actually be the best thing for everybody. The Phillies purchased the contract of RJ Swindle for the time being. It is unknown how many starts Myers will make for the Iron Pigs, but it should be somewhere close to 4.
The second part of reloading took place last night against the Atlanta Braves as the Phillies won 8-3. Kyle Kendrick got the win to go to 8-3 by pitching a quality start (6 innings, 3 runs). The Phillies bullpen got it going again with JC Romero, Tom Gordon, and Brad Lidge each pitching a shutout inning respectively. Pat Burrell hit his 20th homerun of the year. Shane Victorino also went yard.
The top 6 men in the lineup (Rollins, Vic, Utley, Howard, Burrell, and Jenkins) each had 2 hits, with Jayson Werth also going 1-1 after he pinch ran for Pat Burrell. Greg Dobbs did his job by getting a pinch hit for Tom Gordon in the 9th. Besides the 2 homeruns, and a double by Jenkins, the rest of the Phillies 14 hits were singles. Paired with 6 walks and a couple throwing errors by the Braves, we had a lot of men on base to get those runs.
The series against the Braves continues right now actually. In the bottom of the 8th, we are up a couple runs 5-3 after both Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard hit their 21st homeruns of the season. Hopefully they can add a couple more or just hold off the Braves and get it to Lidge to close it out.
