Phillies Fall Flat, Lose to Braves
By: Mike Reisman
After winning in dramatic fashion last night, the Phillies returned to the diamond today to face the Braves. The Phillies and Braves wore throw-back jerseys from the Negro League (Pictures:
Phillies,
Braves), in honor of Civil Rights Weekend in Atlanta. The Phillies sent Joe Blanton against the red-hot Jair Jurrjens who had already beaten the Phillies this year.
The Braves took advantage of Joe Blanton early, hitting back-to-back lead-off home runs, one by Martin Prado, and the other by Nate McClouth, giving the Braves a 2-0 lead. However, Joe would mostly silence the Braves from there on, leaving after five innings allowing only five hits and two runs.
On offense, the Phillies wouldn't be able to get anything started, not getting a single base-runner until Michael Martinez got a pinch hit to break up Jurrjens' perfect game. A few batters later, Rollins would hit Martinez home, making it 2-1. The Braves would answer in the 6th, scoring scoring three more runs and going ahead 5-1.
The Phillies would try to salvage the game in the 8th, scoring two runs on a Wilson Valdez double and John Mayberry Jr. ground out, making the game 5-3, however they could not add any runs, and the Phillies would lose by that same score. Jurrjens improved to 5-0 while Joe Blanton got the loss, making him 1-2.
Today was just simply not a good day for the Phillies, as nothing good really came out of today's game. To start, Joe Blanton pitched... well, like Joe Blanton, and he was unable to really shut-down the Braves. He didn't do awfully aside from the first two batters, but he was definitely nothing special. In addition, the bullpen was below-average today, allowing three runs in three innings, giving the Phillies almost no chance to win.
Of course, the pitching isn't totally to blame as the hitting was poor today as well. The Phillies could only manage three hits all game, and the 2-6 hitters couldn't manage a single hit. Though it's only one game, these games seem to be happening fairly often, and the Phillies will need to score more runs if they want to be able to win any of the starts by pitchers not named Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt or Cole Hamels.
The Phillies finish the series tomorrow at 1:35 as Roy Halladay faces off against Tim Hudson.