Hamels and Polanco helped the Phillies achieve a series win (AP)
The Phillies finished out their 10-game, west-coast road-trip with a 7-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The victory ends the long jaunt across the country at 5-5. Today, it was all about Cole Hamels, who earned his third victory in four starts.
On offense, the Phils put up seven runs on 13 hits, giving them 15 runs and 25 hits in two days.
HAMELS LOCKS IT DOWN
-The final damage of the D’Backs: eight innings, four hits, two runs, one walk, seven strikeouts. Hamels needed 108 pitches on the day, throwing 72 strikes.
-Hamels allowed a lead-off double to Willie Bloomquist to start things off. He then picked off Bloomquist in an ugly rundown that went 1-5-1-4-6-3, if you were scoring at home. After that, Hamels retired 18 straight Diamondbacks and faced the minimum from the second batter of the game up until the second batter of the seventh inning. If you saw that at-bat, Hamels nearly had Bloomquist struck out on a foul tip, but Carlos Ruiz could not hold onto it.
-The seventh inning was the one Hamels would like to muck. After striking out the first batter on three pitches, he allowed three consecutive singles and a walk. A sure-double-play ball was botched by Pete Orr, allowing the second of two runs to score for ARZ in that inning.
-He had given 20 hits in just over 18 innings heading into the matchup with Arizona, which was really the only knock on Hamels early in the season. However, he raised his K/BB ratio to 30/3. A silly figure.
RUNS ARE FUNS!
-“How about that,” as T-mac would say. The Phillies put together a big inning, posting five runs in the sixth inning and sending 10 men to the plate. Hamels helped himself by knocking in two with a bases-loaded, broken-bat, two-out single. Hopefully someone on the Phillies DVR’d that inning, because they need to go back and look at how those runs were produced. Solid, patient at-bats.
-Also in that inning, Hunter Pence, Ty Wigginton, and Carlos Ruiz all had big singles. Ruiz finished the day 3-for-4.
–Placido Polanco reached base five times on the day; three hits and two walks to go with two runs scored. The last time Polanco reached base four times in a game was April 27, 2011. Polly has really been scuffling so he needs to build on this.
-Phillies with multi-hit games: Pierre, Polanco, Pence, Ruiz.
-Go back to the ninth inning of the first game of the Arizona series, and that could be the jumping off point for the offense. – runs is hardly an explosion, however, it could be all they need to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
NOTES
–Michael Schwimer made his season debut with the Phillies, sitting down the D’backs in order in the ninth inning.
-It’s back to Citizens Bank Park on Friday after an off day tomorrow. The Phillies will begin a four-game series with the Cubs over the weekend. If they can nab 3-of-4 from Chicago, it could be a nice turn around heading into May.
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