Phillies Bullpen Can’t Hold Lead for Kendrick
Stop me if you’ve heard this one last year.
The Phillies took a 3-0 lead into the eighth inning, but a win was not in store as the bullpen wasted a great performance from the starting pitching and sent the Phillies to a heart-breaking 4-3 loss.
Kyle Kendrick pitched like somebody who had read that their job was in question. After a couple of terrible starts to start the season, Kendrick pitched 8 innings of shutout baseball that included a mere four hits and two walks to go along with a pair of strikeouts, but his night would not finish with a W.
However, Ryan Madson gave people one more thing to talk about. After recording two outs in the ninth, Madson gave up back-to-back home runs to Troy Glaus and rookie slugger, Jason Heyward that tied the game and sent it into extra innings.
With the first batter in the bottom of the 10th inning, Jose Contreras delivered a pitch on a 2-2 count that Nate McLouth dropped right into the right field seats, giving the Braves a 4-3 win, and sending the Phillies to their third straight loss.
The bullpen took the attention off of Kendrick’s great start, allowing three of the final five batters to leave the yard.
The sinker was working in Kendrick’s favor as he was able to put together 14 groundballs. None were bigger than an inning-ending double-play ball off the bat of Troy Glaus that ended the Braves lone threat in the game. With the bases loaded in the fourth, Kendrick got Glaus to send one over to Placido Polanco who quickly turned the 5-4-3 and kept the Braves off the scoreboard for the time being.
On the offensive side of the game, the Phillies bats didn’t do much, but it seemed as if they had down enough after eight innings. Chase Utley put together a 2-5 evening with a pair of RBIs and a run scored. Utley’s run came off an infield single that Ryan Howard managed to push through the infield shift as the ball went off of the glove of Troy Glaus. Polanco also managed to put together another two-hit effort as he saw his batting average rise over .400 again. The only Phillie who didn’t get a hit was Carlos Ruiz, who went 0-4.
Hopefully Roy Halladay can stop the bleeding tomorrow night as all of a sudden the Phillies have dropped three straight and four of their last five games.
