Velasquez's return solid, Phillies beat Marlins

Velasquez’s return solid, Phillies beat Marlins

Theo DeRosa

July 18 2017

By Theo DeRosa, Sports Talk Philly staff

Final: Phillies 5, Marlins 2

MIAMI — While most of the 2017 season has displayed the worst aspects of this dismal Phillies team, Tuesday night's win over the Marlins showed off the best.

Starter Vince Velasquez, returning from the disabled list, went six strong innings, gave up just one run and limited his pitch count to 79. Maikel Franco collected three hits, coming a triple short of the cycle and delivering a go-ahead home run in the eighth. Nick Williams added some insurance with a two-run blast in the ninth. And the bullpen did its job — Pat Neshek, Joaquín Benoit and Héctor Neris each pitched a scoreless frame to close it out.

The game displayed encouraging, albeit rare, signs of the Phillies success. And it was sealed with a win, as the Phils beat the Marlins, 5-2.

WP: Pat Neshek (2-2, 1.32) ❖ LP: Dustin McGowan (1-2, 4.25) ❖ S: Neris (9)

Hub: Game Summary ❖ Starting Pitchers ❖ At the Plate ❖ Bullpen ❖ What's Next

Game Summary

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
PHI	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	2	5	13	1
MIA	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	5	0

Once again, Giancarlo Stanton went deep in the first inning. After Dee Gordon was ruled out on the review of a grounder to second, Stanton took a middle-in fastball from Velasquez way out to left-center to put Miami on the board first.

The Phillies put runners on the corners in the top of the second against left-hander Adam Conley, who returned Tuesday from a DL trip. A soft grounder to the pitcher resulted in an ugly series of baserunning errors that caught Maikel Franco at home and Cameron Rupp at second, but Odúbel Herrera wound up on third with two away and Cameron Perkins slapped a single to right to tie the game.

In the third, Velasquez fielded a grounder from JT Riddle and threw it wide, down the first-base line. Riddle reached third on the play, and scored when a Velasquez pitch went off of Rupp's glove for a passed ball.

Perkins laid down an excellent squeeze bunt in the fourth to tie it and even managed to reach on the play, driving in Herrera from third once again.

On a 0-2 pitch to Christian Yelich in the sixth, Velasquez grabbed at his lower leg. He got out of the inning one pitch later, but departed after 79 pitches and six innings. Velasquez was charged with one earned run, four hits and one walk. He struck out four.

Conley also lasted six innings, allowing eight hits and two earned runs. The left-hander walked two Phillies and struck out two. He gave way to Junichi Tazawa, who pitched a scoreless seventh. All-Star reliever Pat Neshek countered with a clean inning of his own.

Former Phillies reliever Dustin McGowan, who has been quite effective for the Marlins in 2017, allowed a solo shot to Franco with one out in the eighth. It was the third hit of the night for Franco, who came a triple short of the cycle on Tuesday night.

Benoit allowed a two-out bloop single to Ichiro in the eighth, but got Dee Gordon to ground to short to end the threat.

Jarlín García allowed a leadoff ground-rule double to Andrés Blanco and a two-out two-run bomb to Williams as he let the Phillies push the lead to three runs.

Neris came on for the second straight night and did his job again, keeping the lead at 5-2 and preserving the win.

Nick Pivetta gets the ball for an early series finale on Wednesday, a 12:10 p.m. start. He faces right-hander Dan Straily, who has been excellent for Miami thus far with a 3.32 ERA on the season.

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Starting Pitchers