Jose Bautista and the Blue Jays ran away with the game in the seventh
Photo: Philliedelphia/Andrew Gillen
This year's home-and-home interleague four-game set with the Toronto Blue Jays started off pretty rough for the Phillies. Monday night saw no runs scored against J.A. Happ and the Jays' bullpen, while Kyle Kendrick allowed three early runs to give away the first game. Last night, Cole Hamels seemed to still be a bit shaky coming off his sore arm, allowing five runs and ten hits. While the offense managed to push across five on the scoreboard, those runs only came in one inning, and a ten inning contest resulted in the team's second straight loss. Now, the series shipped up to Toronto, where a battle of fast-paced hurlers was set to ensue. Cliff Lee, the former AL Cy Young winner, and Mark Buerhle, the four-time AL All-Star, faced off in tonight's game.
The Game: As expected, the game rolled off very quickly. Each pitcher had their gameplan set, and executed flawlessly. Five innings of baseball were completed in just over an hour of time, and it looked as though the game may finish in under 120 minutes. One single score came across the plate in those innings, and it was for the home squad in the third inning. With one out recorded, Colby Rasmus singled into right field. He was followed up by Steve Tollefson, whose double put two runners in scoring position. Cliff Lee was then up against shortstop Jose Reyes, who had been 3-for-13 in his career against Lee. He wouldn't record a hit, but a sacrifice fly would score a run to give Toronto a 1-0 lead.
Both Lee and Buerhle would pitch into the seventh inning, with Buerhle continuing to throw shutout ball. Lee had given up just the single run earlier, but would run into some major trouble in this inning. And, so would the Phillies bullpen. The leadoff hit should have been of some indication, with Edwin Encarnacion sending a ball into center field that Ben Revere could not figure out how to handle. It ended up bouncing off the wall and over Revere's head for a triple. That set up former Phillies Erik Kratz to send his second homerun of the season into the left field seats. The Jays were no where near finished.
Just for good measure, Toronto blooped and blasted once again off of Lee. Dioner Navarro singled immediately following Kratz's homerun, and Juan Francisco collected his fourth homerun of the season to rapidly move the score to 5-0. While he managed to get Colby Rasmus to ground out, Cliff Lee gave up Steve Tollefson's second double of the night, and was sent to the showers in favor of Mario Hollands. Unfortunately, Hollands wasn't so lucky either, as he failed to record a single out. He first gave up a walk to Jose Reyes, then managed to strikeout Melky Cabrera. Unfortunately, the third strike skipped away from Carlos Ruiz, and a run came in to score. In fact, the out wasn't even recorded, and Hollands would leave the game.
Shawn Camp was the next man out of the pen, and soon joined in on the misery. Jose Bautista extended his on-base game streak to 35 games with a single that brought home Reyes. After leading off the inning with a triple, Encarnacion got another shot, and continued to rake. A long homerun into left-center field cracked double digits for Toronto, as they blew their lead open to 10-0 over the lifeless Phillies. Kratz would single in his second appearance of the frame, and it looked like the bleeding would continue. In his second at bat, though, Navaroo grounded into a simple double play that finally put a close on the seventh inning. In total, the Blue Jays collected, nine runs, eight hits, and three homeruns off of Phillies pitching.
Thankfully, that would be the end of Toronto's offense. Shawn Camp remained in the game to pitch a scoreless ninth, and the Phillies offense remained quiet the last two innings. The final score stood at 10-0, with the Jays taking three straight from the Phillies.
Impact: Well, not much to smile about in this ugly excuse of a game. Cliff Lee looked superb for six full inning, then struggled to find the extra .1 in the seventh. The bullpen wasn't much help either, and Toronto finished with eleven hits and ten runs. On the other side of the ball, the Phillies offense has not scored a run in 33 of their last 34 innings, which will never help a team succeed. They've been shutout in two of their last three contests, and have absolutely no momentum headed into tomorrow night's final game of the series.
Up Next: A.J. Burnett will look to try to push back the derailed train that is this Phillies squad, when he faces off against knuckleball specialist R.A. Dickey at 7:07 eastern.
