Phillies Still Slumping, Lose to Cardinals
By: Mike Reisman
Five, five, three, two, one. If you don't recognize these numbers, let me give you a hint. These are the numbers of runs the Phillies have scored in each of their past five games including tonight, numbers the team with the best record in baseball should be easily surpassing. Tonight the Phillies had the opportunity to try and get their bat's working against Jake Westbrook who came into the game with a weak 6.92 ERA. Although the Phillies would play without Shane Victorino and Placido Polanco due to injury and an off-day (respectively), hitting off of Westbrook should not have been difficult.
Though the Phillies took an early 1-0 lead on a Ben Francisco single, they would give it back in the 4th with Nick Punto and Ryan Theriot singling to give the Cards a 2-1 lead. They would add to the lead in the 7th on a Jon Jay single, making the score 3-1. The game would end 3-1 with the Cardinals winning. Westbrook got the win and Cliff Lee took the loss, his fourth of the year.
Before I get to the obvious issue of the hitting, first let's address Cliff Lee's poor start. Tonight, Lee allowed 6 walks in 6.1 innings while only striking out four. To put that into perspective, Lee came into the game with only seven walks all year, and 64 strikeouts, a ratio of 9.14 strikeouts to every walk. Just his walk and strikeout total tonight tell me that something may be very wrong with Cliff, as he has never thrown more than five walks in a game before ever in his career. If Lee has an injury that we don't know of, the Phillies may have more problems than just hitting.
Speaking of hitting, the Phillies bats were absolutely atrocious tonight, and they were only able to salvage five hits off of one of the worst pitchers they will face for a while. To make matters worse, two of those hits came from Jimmy Rollins, so without him the team could only combine for a total of three hits. This slump needs to stop, especially now that the Phillies are facing teams that won't just be able to be beaten on pitching. Of course, the line-up should have more success with Polanco, Victorino, and eventually Utley when he gets back, but until then, everyone else needs to step up and start hitting.
The Phillies try again tomorrow at 8:15 as Roy Oswalt gets his first start this month against the Cardinals ace Jaime Garcia.