Phils Beat Brewers For Fifth Straight Win

It’s June 6, and the Phillies are finally over .500.

Soak that in for a little while. It’s the first time the Phils are above water this season, and it took five straight wins to get there. It feels good. A win streak like this is exactly what this teams needs, and they continued to roll tonight, knocking off the Brewers 5-1.

They had it all working, getting runs early and leaning on another positive start from Tyler Cloyd.

NEW LINEUP, SAME RESULTS

– Charlie Manuel raised some eyebrows when he tabbed Michael Young to be the leadoff man. The adjustment, as puzzling as it seemed to some people before the game, wouldn’t slow down a team that had scored at least six runs in their last four games, and at least five in five of their last six before tonight. Now you can make it six of their last seven.

– The bats got off to a fast start, scoring two in the first, one in the second and one in the third. Their run in the third was set up by Domonic Brown, who has decided he is now a premiere base stealer on top of his superhuman power. Brown stole both second and third in the inning, before scoring on a ground ball. He now has five steals this season, all of them coming after May 18.

– John Mayberry and Delmon Young are having themselves a week. After his late-inning heroics on Tuesday, Mayberry went 1-for-4 and scored a run yesterday. Tonight, he’d be in the mix once again, scoring a run in the first and driving in another one in the second. As for Young, he doubled in a run and scored a run in Tuesday’s win. His fifth inning home run tonight would make it 5-0 Phils. The two hitters would combine to go 5-for-8.

TYLER CLOYD IS BUD SELIG

– As a pitcher it’s always tough to face a team twice in a week. They’ve often got a good read on you, and that can spell disaster. For Cloyd, however, the familiarity was hardly an issue. In fact, he seems to have the Brewers’ number. Cloyd cruised through the game, hardly finding himself in trouble at all.

I’m not quite sure how Cloyd keeps doing this. After tonight’s start he’s now gone at least six innings allowing two runs or fewer in four of his five starts. He’d manage 6.2 scoreless innings tonight. But he walked five and struck out just two. It’s really impeccable that he didn’t allow a single run. The key for Cloyd was limiting the hits. The Brewers only had four against him. It’s tough to score runs when you don’t hit. The Brew Crew have now manged just two runs in 13.2 innings against Cloyd. Like Bud Selig used to, Tyler Cloyd owns the Brewers.

GAME NOTES

– The MLB first-year player draft was tonight. With the sixteenth pick in the first round, the Phillies selected J.P. Crawford, a shortstop out of Lakewood High School in California. He’s a raw player with a projected high ceiling (surprise, surprise!). Interesting note on Crawford: He is the cousin of Carl Crawford.

– I don’t want to jinx this thing, but Cliff Lee (7-2, 2.45) is on the mound for the Phils against the Brewers tomorrow night as the Phils try to keep the streak alive. Alfredo Figaro (0-0, 3.67) goes for the Brew Crew.