It surely wasn't pretty but the Phillies avoided ugly history and scrapped together a 1-0 win over the New York Mets. With this win, the Phillies avoided their first 0-5 start in 82 years.
Vince Velasquez tossed six shutout innings earning his first win in his first start as a Phillie. Ryan Howard gave the Phillies their lone run with his first homer of the season. Another positive sign of this win was the Phillies bullpen. Once Velasquez exited the game after six electrifying innings, the bullpen tossed four lockdown innings with Jenmar Gomez getting the save, his first as a Phillie.
On a bitterly cold night inside Citi Field, the story of the night was Velasquez. He ran into some trouble early on locating his pitches after throwing 26 pitches in the first inning, however, somehow not surrendering a run. Velasquez threw 99 pitches with 63 being strikes and nine strikeouts. There were points in the game where he looked simply dominant. His fastball had gas touching 95mph behind it and his breaking stuff made a few Mets hitters look silly.
To put Velasquez's stellar performance into more perspective; his nine strikeouts are the most for a pitcher in his Phillies debut since Roy Halladay fanned nine back in 2010.
If the first four games of the season told us anything it's to not bank on the bullpen. Luckily, Saturday night agains the Mets the Phillies bullpen arms buckled up and got the final nine outs. Hector Nerris, Daniel Stumpf and David Hernandez get the first six, and Gomez ended it with the final three. The bullpen threw a total of 35 pitches, with 18 being for strikes.
The only run of the ballgame came off the bat of Ryan Howard. Howard took Bartolo Colon deep for an opposite field home run in the top half of the fifth inning. It was Howard's second on the young campaign and his 45 HR for his career agains the Mets. Howard also has 130 RBI in 162 career games against their division rivals.
Howard's home run actually broke Colon's streak of retiring 12 of the first 13 batters he faced.
Cesar Hernandez and Cameron Rupp were the only Phillies who collected multiple hits on the night. Four of the Phillies eight hits came off the bats of those two guys. Freddy Galvis, Odubel Herrera, Maikel Franco, and Cedric Hunter went a combined 2-for-15 with four strikeouts.
For the Mets, Yoenis Cespedes went 0-for-4 making him 2-for-16 this season with seven strikeouts. The Mets top four hitters went 2-for-15 with seven strikeouts. Asdrubal Cabrera collected the two hits and Lucas Duda grabbed the third and final Met hit of the evening.
On a night of firsts, the Phillies won the battles. With Matt Harvey scheduled to take the stump Sunday afternoon, the Phillies will have their work cut out for them. Jeremy Hellickson will take the hill for Pete Mackanin Sunday as he will look for his second consecutive quality start.
