Posted by Danielle Wilson
Cole Hamels went for his fifth consecutive win tonight against Jair Jurrjens in the rubber match of this Phillies-Braves series, which much to our dismay was on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Here come the endless cheesesteak and Rocky mentions from Bobby Valentine, Orel Hershiser, and Dan Shulman.
The Braves marked two runs on the board in the second inning when Alex Gonzalez hit a two-run home run to left field.
Placido Polanco singled and scored Jimmy Rollins in the third inning to cut down the Braves' lead to just one run.
With the score still 2-1 going into the fifth, Freddie Freeman went yard to left to push the lead to 3-1 for the Braves. Where is the run support for Cole, come on! I'm going nuts over this!
After seven innings of work, Cole Hamels was done with another gem. His line: Five hits, three earned runs, one walk, nine strikeouts.
Michael Stutes came in to pitch the eighth inning, and we finally saw that he is indeed able to screw up a game. Stutes allowed a two-run home run to Eric Hinske to make it a 5-1 game. After walking two, Stutes was booed as he handed the ball over to Charlie and left the field in the same inning. That is not ok, but I'll never start a booing argument.
Scott Mathieson filled in for Stutes and allowed one hit to Brian McCann, but didn't allow a run to score.
In the bottom of the eighth, Shane Victorino led it off with a triple to left field off of Jonny Venters. Placido Polanco reached first on a fielding error by the back-up shortshop Diory Hernandez, and Shane scored easily from third. 5-2 Braves.
After Scott Mathieson walked two and allowed one hit in the ninth, Baez came in and got Martin Prado to ground into a double play. The Phillies now just needed a miracle with Craig Kimbrel coming in to close it out.
With two men on and one out in the bottom of the ninth, Shane Victorino struck looking at what was clearly a ball (Shane had some nasty words for the ump on national television) and Placido Polanco flied out to end the game. Phillies lose the series, and Cole Hamels takes his second loss of the season.
The Phillies and Marlins start a three-game series tomorrow in Miami, Joe Blanton will take the mound against Javier Vazquez.
