Phils Chop Braves, Increase Division Lead
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Mon, September 22, 2008 10:45 PM | Comments: 26
Posts
Baseball is truly a game of inches. The Phillies proved it in a 6-2 win over the Braves, increasing their NL East lead over the Mets to 2.5 games with five to play.
The win came down to two infield chops. The first: a clean field by Jimmy Rollins, a stone-cold block by Carlos Ruiz. The second: a mad dash by Greg Golson, a rookie mistake by Clint Sammons. The first kept the game tied, the second handed the Phils the lead. Pat Burrell’s mighty bat secured the victory — he whacked a three-run shot later in the eighth to make it 6-2.
That eighth also featured mighty performances by the middle relief section of the Phils bullpen. Rudy Seanez relieved JA Happ with two outs in the seventh, and forced Greg Norton into an inning-ending groundout. He allowed a leadoff Kelly Johnson double in that eighth, but got a line out and that clutch force out at home. Scott Eyre was pulled in to face Casey Kotchman, and the former Angel flied out to end the inning.
Eyre picked up the win, but Happ also deserves huge praise. The prospect baffled the Braves in 6.2 innings, striking out five while surrendering five hits. His one big mistake was a slider that Johnson pummeled into the right field seats. But for a guy making his fifth major league start in tense, playoff conditions … well, not too shabby.
The Phillies gave Happ a quick lead. Rollins struck a leadoff double, then scored on an Utley two-bagger. In the third, Shane Victorino singled, moved to second on a groundout, advanced to third on a Jair Jurrjens wild pitch, then scored on a Carlos Ruiz infield chop.
The Phils used that to perfection.
Associated Press photo
Posts: 0 NEPA
I like the decision on the Ashburn – total team effort.
Posted: 11:03 PM on September 22, 2008
Posts: 0 Gary B.
Lets just keep it going…I’m liking the team efforts in these past few weeks, everybody pitching in where they can.
Posted: 11:05 PM on September 22, 2008
Posts: 0 Brooks
quite the exciting game tonight. Just over 36 thousand people there and I was shocked that the stadium was not full tonight, a perfect night for baseball.
Sweet win!
Posted: 11:18 PM on September 22, 2008
Posts: 0 karms99
golson is the new bourn
Posted: 01:00 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Nationals#1
and happ is the new kendrick
Posted: 01:38 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Rob Cowie
Green is the new black
Posted: 02:16 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Lewisauce
Green? My ass. Phillies red is the new black.
Posted: 03:55 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Mark
Things are lookin’ mighty good for the Phils. Magic # 4 to Division title, 3 for Wildcard! Kudos to Happ, Pat the Bat and the bullpen! Go Phillies!
Posted: 04:06 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Craig
Pat the Bat no getting the Ashburn award?
Posted: 04:23 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 » Happ, Victorino, Burrell Star as Phillies Beat Braves, Magic #4 | Blogging-Baseball.com
[...] Phillies Nation’s Tim Malcolm sums up the game this way; Baseball is truly a game of inches. [...]
Posted: 06:24 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Rob Cowie
I saw a girl with a shirt on the subway that said that. Its why I posted it
Posted: 07:19 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Gnomicide
This just isn’t a good team right now.
Posted: 07:41 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 dan
My Ashburn- Jason Marquis
Posted: 07:42 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 rk
Those of you wondering in an early post how this team stacks up to the 80 team…
91 and 71 won East by One Game, they had to battle to win the division. They were up and down throughout the year….
Pitching was better then….so was the bench
Schmidty hit 48 HR (Howard is close to that already)
Tug had a great year….
and dont forget about Marty Bystrom, 1980 version of Happ….
Posted: 08:54 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
dan you may be one of the few people in the world that likes Jason Marquis, even his mother probably hates him. The competition is falling apart and it’s only getting worse for the Mets who’s bullpen is getting so taxed its no wonder they can’t hold a lead. Whatever it is credit to the Phils who when it comes down to it are showing up when it matters, hopefully the core relievers will get a bit of a rest over the coming days.
Posted: 09:08 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 NEPA
NJ, I like Marquis too, when he’s hitting grand slams off the Mets in a pennant race.
Posted: 09:23 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 551 Brian Michael
Jason Marquis will never win an Ashburn award….it’s a long story, but essentially his brother threw a beer at me after I was heckling Marquis when he was on the Braves. We both got taken to the police office at the Vet.
Posted: 09:42 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
Marquis is the kind of ballplayer you can imagine keeps a small knife in his glove in case of a bench-clearing or a batter charging the mound.
Posted: 10:34 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 mike m
Can’t anyone stop the posting of magic numbers. It’s a jinks, We know people like mark are mets fans trying to jinks us. delite all they posting.
Posted: 11:05 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Bruce
To paraphrase a line by one of the Mets’ TV announcers (Gary Cohen?) after conclusion of last night’s Mets-Cubs game:
The Mets need to outscore their own bullpen…. (laughter)
Posted: 11:07 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Gavin
Why was the bank not full last night? Thats rediculous. We get on the Braves fans and other fans for not filling up their park in a pennent race and then we dont? Come on.
Posted: 11:17 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Manny
Yea, I don’t get that either, Gavin. We had like 40+ sellouts this season, and this game WASN’T one of them! Odd
Posted: 11:57 AM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Matt
Attendance generally drops off after kids go back to school. Most parents don’t want their kids staying out until 10:00 – 11:00 on a school night. I think 36K is an appropriate number for a non-clinching, yet important game in September.
If you go back to years where they weren’t even in contention in late September, you’d probably see numbers in the mid to high 20′s.
Posted: 12:11 PM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 christopher
i’ll probably be there tonight to help rectify the situation.
Posted: 12:12 PM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 KM
Magic number is 4 for the division, and 3 for the playoffs in general . . . I’m excited, is it possible to get a counter up here, haha.
Posted: 12:19 PM on September 23, 2008
Posts: 0 Gabriel
i dont know what it is about those little white towels but… those 36K sounded more like 60K worth of fans last night… maybe next year we should give out the rally-towel at every home game, the fans loudness will rival a penn state home game hahah
Posted: 01:47 PM on September 23, 2008