Game 43 - Monday Night, May 21st in Philadelphia
Record - 21-22, 5th Place, 5 games behind the Braves
One Sentence Summary: A lack of offense and some questionable base-running led to the latest Phillies loss on a rainy night in Philly.
What It Means: Just like that, the six-game winning streak is gone and in its place is a three-game losing streak. The Phils once again have a losing record.
What What Wrong: The bats were relatively quiet through the first five innings thanks to Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez. The Phils had legitimate chances to not only score, but possibly take the lead, in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings, but it was not to be. The sixth was particularly painful as they wasted a second and third with no outs opportunity with nary a run to show for it. Placido Polanco had two base-running gaffes in the inning contributing to the futility of the inning. Overall, the offense left 10 men on base and went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position.
On the bright side, Kyle Kendrick had a great start, allowing two runs on five hits over seven innings. He also made a nice play at the plate to prevent another Nationals run in the third. He's quietly tallied a 2.25 ERA over his last four starts.
Featured Card: I wrote about Gonzalez back in December when there were rumors swirling that the Phils could be trying to obtain their former farmhand. A few weeks following that post, the A's traded Gonzalez to the Nationals and he's lived up to the hype. He's now 6-1 with a 1.98 ERA following his performance against the Phillies last night.
This is one of only a few minor league cards of Gonzalez in my collection, as the phenom spent only the 2006 season within the Phillies organization. The design of this card borrows heavily from the 1994 Donruss set.
2 comments:
Just like that, the six-game winning streak is gone
Imagine, the schedulers making the Phillies play good teams too!
As long as the team (and coaching staff) foster the "let's just tread water until we get our guys back" mindset (instead of stepping up to fill the void themselves (and EARN their paychecks, by the way), this team will continue to be mediocre.
And I'm so tired of hearing the apologists among the fan base and media trot out the "they won 102 games last year". What does that have to do with 2012?
This team is banking on "getting their guys back", and are content to mark time until them. Even if Howard and Utley return, the team will not be improved over and above the 2011 post-season, and we all saw how THAT turned out.
You hit the nail on the head! I'm going to catch up my game summary posts tomorrow and I'll need to refer back to your analysis here.
What a frustrating year.
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