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It was a pleasant Mother’s Day for moms across the Delaware Valley, as they were treated to a 5-3 Phillies win to finish off the homestand. The Phillies used a few long balls and a solid bullpen to win the series against the Braves before heading to Colorado.
Cole Hamels was not good on this day, but he fought through some difficult innings and kept his team in the ballgame. Hamels was moving along nicely through the first four innings with no runs on the board and 4 hits. He was helped by his defense in the first inning when Jayson Werth threw out Omar Infante to end the inning. But he looked OK.
Charlie Manuel explained what happen end in the fifth inning the best. "I think he was just sailing along there, and then all of a sudden, he just absolutely lost his stuff," Manuel said. "It happens."
Hamels had zero control in the fifth and was behind nearly every hitter with a ton of 3 ball counts. In the inning he walked two batters, allowed four hits and three runs and threw 39 pitches. Charlie was right because Cole clearly lost the feel for his pitches. After battling and only giving up one run, Troy Glaus hit a two-run single that found the hole between third and short. Yes, it was another one of those big innings, but he kept the damage at 3 and the Phillies escaped the inning with a 4-3 lead.
Who would have thought at that point that they had all the support they needed? Charlie brought out by far his two best relievers to hold the lead: Durbin and Contreras. Chad Durbin came in to pitch two scoreless innings. He was really good and didn’t allow a hit and had 4 strikeouts. Then Jose Contreras pitched a scoreless eight inning. That all led to the first save opportunity for Brad Lidge.
If you look at the box score you will see that he pitched a perfect inning, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. On a day where the wind was blowing in, Eric Hinske crushed a ball to deep center field that Victorino caught at the warning track. And the next batter smashed one that would have been 20 rows deep on any other day, but it blew back and Ibanez caught it right at the wall.
This was a good game to end the homestand. After a tough road trip and losing an embarrassing game to the Mets, the Phillies won all three series and finished with a 7-3 homestand. Not bad.
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