Phils Don't Gain Ground in Division

Tonight marked the 100th consecutive sell out at Citizens Bank Park and they fans were treated to...nothing, really. The Phils were stifled through eight innings tonight as they missed an opportunity to gain a game on the Atlanta Braves who lost to the Washington Nationals earlier in the day.

The Phillies (68-52) lost a snoozer tonight to the San Francisco Giants last night by a score of 5-2 as Philadelphia was stifled by Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez who baffled Phillies hitters all night long.

Sanchez dominated from the start, he only allowed one hit entering the ninth inning and no one reached second base for the Phils against him. Sanchez had a streak in the game where he retired 15 consecutive batters.

It was a quiet night for what should have been a celebration of what the Phillies have been able to achieve over the past three plus seasons in Philadelphia and it has shown at the gate with last night marking the 100th consecutive sellout at the Bank, but the crowd was silent most of the night because the bats were for the most part.

There wasn't much to cheer about until the bottom of the ninth when the Phillies were able to get a couple base runners for Mike Sweeney who doubled in the first and last runs of the game for Philadelphia.

Sanchez won his eighth game of the season and gave his biggest performance of the second half by pulling the Giants back to within one game of the wild card lead. He improved to 3-1 in his career against the Phillies and did it in convincing fashion.

Cole Hamels fell behind early and never recovered when he gave up three early runs in the first inning. Hamels worked through five gritty innings giving up five earned runs on seven hits while striking out five and in the process he picked up his 10th loss of the season.

It's unfortunate that Cole picked another loss tonight as he still hasn't seen any run support in his recent starts and the team didn't score a run for Cole again tonight and they haven't scored a run for Cole in three starts.

Cole gave up four or more runs tonight for only the second time in his last 10 starts. Looking at Hamels' previous starts, he was given only eight runs of support in his last six starts and that's not even mentioning his two previous starts which were back-to-back 1-0 losses to the Mets. Cole now drops to 0-3 in August with an ERA of 3.67.

The Nationals are rolling into town now, fresh off a nice win over the Braves on Thursday afternoon and are going to face Roy Halladay. He will look to help the Phils avoid a losing streak and stay on top in the wild card hunt. Another sell out crowd awaits the best pitcher in the NL on Friday night.