With last night's 7-3 win over the Braves, the Phillies have now made it 6 straight wins over their counterparts in Atlanta.
Despite winning by 4 runs, this game was far from easy. Adam Eaton had to bail himself out of a few jams and even walked 5 batters. And, J.C. Romero gave us some scary moments. As if that wasn't enough Brad Lidge loaded up the bases in the ninth and barely hung on for a save.
The reason for last night's win is rather simple. Just like in the previous night, they got enormous production out of their 1-5 hitters. Thus, Ryan Howard and Burrell lit up the skies with some pre-July 4th fireworks, as each hit their 21st homers of the season.
We've seen this so many times with the Phillies. When they're hitting homeruns in the hot weather and getting quality starting pitching to hand it over to their bullpen they are virtually unbeatable.
J.D. Durbin, who many speculate as the pitcher to fill in for Myers should not be taken out of the bullpen. He's perfect for middle relief. Again, last night he pitched a pair of innings and allowed just one hit. There's nothing more that I can't stand then a team screwing with the chemistry of a team by yanking a pitcher (in this case one who's been lights out) out of their role and throwing them into a fill-in role. Not only could that screw up Durbin's conditioning, but it could ruin his confidence if he has a few bad starts.
Looks like Hamels will take Myers' spot for now as he goes on the hill tonight. But, they will need to come up with somebody in the next 5 days.
They will look to make it a clean sweep tonight, same time, same place down in Hotlanta as Hamels goes up against Jair Jurrjens.
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Red Carpet Treatment
Yesterday the Sixers put on the full court press for restricted free agent Josh Smith, by giving him a hero's welcome to Philadelphia.
He even got to meet with Mayor Nutter.
It was an impressive move by the Sixers as they had to come up with their A-game in hopes to woo the restricted free agent.
Now, it's another thing if they can pull this off. Looks like the only way they can do is by front-loading the contract and thereby forcing the Hawks into a position where they can't match because of reaching the luxury tax threshold.
I have a bad feeling though that the Sixers are going to come out of this empty-handed and they'll be saying to us, "we tried everything, but couldn't land anybody." Doesn't that sound like a few teams we know of?
We've been burned too many times in Philly by getting our hopes up, so I'm going to believe it when I see it.
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