Howard is a phenom. And chalk one up for the boys over at Baseball Prospectus. Ryan Howard was on the cover with a caption about him having 50 homerun potential. If anything, they might have been overly conservative. He still has most of another month left so 60 isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Friday’s game was called on account of rain and that forced the Phillies and Braves to play back to back double headers. Fortunately with September call ups, there was plenty of help. In game one on Saturday, the Phillies took a three run lead into the seventh and a one run lead into the ninth but lost the game. Arthur Rhodes isn’t Tom Gordon and he gave up a two run homerun to Adam LaRoche to end it. A great start by Jon Lieber went to waste and Chase Utley drove in all three Phillies runs with two homeruns in the 4-3 loss.
The Phillies bounced back in a big way in game two. They scored 16 runs on 20 hits with Mike Lieberthal hitting a homerun and driving in four runs. Ryan Howard went two for four with two runs and an RBI and Jeff Conine scored three times on three hits and a walk. Scott Mathieson left the game in the first inning and Eude Brito picked up the win in relief with four solid innings.
The Phillies made it two straight in game on Sunday. This was all Ryan Howard. He hit homeruns number 50, 51 and 52 and he drove in four runs in the 8-7 win. The Phillies bullpen has been a concern because they tried to blow this one too. The Phillies had a 6-1 lead and the Braves scored two in the eighth and four in the ninth to make it 7-6. Then the Phillies came through in the bottom of the ninth. They tied it on Jimmy Rollins RBI single and then won it on Scott Victorino’s walk off RBI single.
The Phillies couldn’t lock up the series in game two. Bret Myers was awesome through eight innings and he struck out ten, unfortunately he left with the game tied. Then Gary Greary gave up two runs in the top of the eleventh and those ended up being the game winners. Pat Burrell drove in a run with sac. fly in the fourth inning for the only Phillies run in the 3-1 loss.
So at the end of the day, the Phillies are still a game back of the Padres. The Reds have dropped out and they’re now behind us so we have first place in our sites. Next up is a big three game series against the Astros, who have remained in the Wild Card mix.
