Cole Hamels entered today's game with two scoreless innings already under his belt. Hamels would give up his first two runs of the Spring today in three innings of work as the Phillies downed the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2. Or, perhaps they won 4-2. More on that later.
Hamels mowed the Pirates down in the first and second innings, and then pitched the third inning for the first time this Spring. With Francisco Cervelli on first base, Hamels gave up a long home run to left off of the bat of Jordy Mercy. This would give the Pirates a 2-0 lead. However, the offense would be all Phillies the rest of the way.
In the game that counted, the Phillies bats started to show some signs of life in terms of productive outs and extra base hits. The Phillies scored their first run in the third inning to get one of the runs back. With Tommy Joseph on third base, Cesar Hernandez hit the ball to the right side for a productive out and run batted in.
It was Hernandez who helped the Phillies score in the sixth. Hernandedz hit a double in the gap with Ben Revere already on first base to put runners at second and third base. Grady Sizemore followed with a productive ground out to score Revere to tie the game. Jeff Francoeur followed with a single that would drive in Hernandez to give the Phillies the lead 3-2.
In an odd turn of events, the Phillies and Pirates played the bottom of the ninth inning, despite the Phillies having already officially won 3-2. The Pirates would get an inning of work in for reliever Jeremy Bleich. His name does not appear in the box score, because the game officially ended.
Also not counting towards his Spring statistics is a solo home run for Domonic Brown. After hitting a couple of balls hard for outs, it was promising to see Brown hit one onto the right-field berm for a home run. Despite being the fourth run of the day for the Phillies, the game officially ended with the Phillies winning 3-2.
The win went to Rule 5 pick Andy Oliver, who pitched a scoreless fifth inning. Jonathan Papelbon, Elvis Araujo, and Mario Hollands all threw scoreless innings before turning the ball over to Jeanmar Gomez in the bottom of the ninth inning. The former Pirate allowed one hit against his former team, a soft-hit ground ball that happened to fall between shortstop Andres Blanco and third baseman Maikel Franco. Gomez picked up the save.
The Phillies head to Lakeland tomorrow to visit the Detroit Tigers for a 1:05 game.
