The Philadelphia Phillies (32-29) finally won a game in Boston yesterday by a score of 5-3. It was Philadelphia's first win at Fenway since 2004 and it was fueled by a dominant Cole Hamels. Raul Ibanez also hit a big two-run home run that broke a one all tie in the top of the fourth inning.
There was and is a lot of talk in the dugout about the Red Sox being the team that started the downward slide for the Phils and specifically Tim Wakefield was the man to credit for the Phillies losing alot of their hitting mojo because of his tricky knuckleball.
Wakefield started the game strong but entered some trouble in the fourth when the Phils bats finally woke up. Trailing 1-0, Ryan Howard doubled with one out and was followed by a huge at-bat for Jayson Werth, who was able to get a clutch single which tied the game at one apiece. Ibanez then came to the plate and lifted a much-needed home run for the team to right field that gave the Phillies a 3-1 lead.
Philadelphia tacked on one more in the inning when Ben Francisco scored off a Juan Castro single.
Wakefield settled down after that and retired the next 10 Phillies batters in order and pitched well enough on the day, going seven and a third giving up the four earned runs on seven hits while striking out three.
While Cole Hamels on the other side did better than just pitch well enough, he kept the Phils in this game early after giving up a second-inning solo home run to Adrian Beltre.Hamels won his sixth game of the season by keeping his cool following the home run and went on to strike out the next four batters following Beltre.
This was definitely a highlight of the 2010 season for Hamels, coming up huge in a start that absoltuely demanded it. Hamels went seven innings while giving up one earned run while striking out eight Boston batters on the afternoon.
Philadelphia needed a pick-me-up after a terrible 10-2 loss on Saturday afternoon that resulted in a players-only meeting following the game.
The Phillies are 7-17 since May 17th which puts them amongst the cellar-dwellers in baseball and the quality of play had to improve going into a big World Series rematch with the Yankees starting on Tuesday night.
Roy Halladay will take the mound on Tuesday against the Yankees and oppose C.C Sabathia in another mega-matchup of starting pitchers. Roy just faced this situation last Thursday when he was out dueled by the Marlins' Josh Johnson and now the prized free agent acquistition for the Phils can test his worth against the team that ended the Phillies run last fall.
We will see how the Phils respond following a big win over the Red Sox, it will be interesting to see whether Philadelphia can parlay any of the success they had yesterday on Tuesday into a winning streak.
With the Phils having an off-day tomorrow, I'll have a Phillies Week-in-Review for you soon, discussing the good, the bad and the brutal from the past week in Phillies baseball.
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