Nationals 6, Phillies 5Game 3 - Thursday Afternoon, April 8th in Washington
The last time the Phillies started a season with a 3-0 record was 2001. The Phils swept the Marlins in Miami with Amaury Telemaco, Chris Brock and Rheal Cormier recording the first three wins of the '01 season for new manager Larry Bowa. In April 2001, Nelson Figueroa was pitching in Scranton for the Phils' AAA affiliate. He'd be summoned to the big club on May 13th, eventually pitching in 19 games with the Phils in 2001.
Fast forward 9 years to this afternoon, and Nelson Figueroa was again on the mound for the Phils, wearing #44 in what I'm going to suggest (hope?) was some sort of strange homage to Vicente Padilla. (Padilla, Figueroa, Travis Lee and Omar Daal will be forever linked as the players obtained from the Diamondbacks for Curt Schilling back in July 2000.) Figueroa allowed a Ryan Zimmerman bloop RBI double in the 7th inning, permitting the Nationals to regain the lead for good and eventually win the game.
Kyle Kendrick struggled in his 2010 debut, lasting only 4 innings and allowing 5 runs on 6 hits. But the Phillies struggled mightily in clutch situations, going just 1 for 14 with runners in scoring position.
Doubles and Puddin': Jayson Werth had three doubles on the day, all against the Nationals' starting pitcher, Craig Stammen. The last Phillie to hit 4 doubles in a game was Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones, who accomplished the feat against the Boston Braves on April 20, 1949.
Go Rheal!!!! :)
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