Game 59 - Sunday Afternoon, June 5th in Pittsburgh
One Sentence Summary: The Phillies averted the sweep behind Roy Halladay's pitching and 14 hits from the offense, defeating the Pirates, 7-3.
What It Means: The four-game losing streak is over and the Phillies escape Pittsburgh having gone 4-5 on their road trip. They'll open an 11-game home stand against the Dodgers, Cubs and Marlins tomorrow night. The Phils are 35-24 and they lead the Marlins and Braves by three games in the East.
What Went Right: Halladay (8-3) gave the Phillies seven strong innings, allowing just two runs on six hits while striking out six. The Phils took advantage of wildness from Pirates starter James McDonald, scoring in the fourth after McDonald had walked a few batters and then hit Carlos Ruiz to load the bases. Raul Ibanez brought home Chase Utley with a sacrifice fly to get the Phillies on the board. It was the 1,000th career RBI for Ibanez.
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| 1994 Bowman's Best #11 |
Utley added three hits to the winning effort and made an amazing diving catch in the seventh to help preserve the lead for the Phils.
Featured Card: Fortunately, the Phillies pulled out a victory and I didn't have to resort to posting a Sil Campusano card. This is one of the cooler inserts found within packs of 2011 Bowman. There are three Phillies featured within the 2011 Bowman's Best insert set - Howard, Halladay and Utley - and the set is modelled after the 1994 Bowman's Best set. Three Phillies appeared in the original version - Darren Daulton, Lenny Dykstra and Wayne Gomes.
Transaction: John Mayberry, Jr. was optioned back down to Triple-A following the game and Ross Gload was re-instated from the paternity leave list.
Just out of curiosity, in a situation like this, are you tempted to place 2011 Bowman's Best alongside the 1994 cards? That's always the temptation I have, and part of the reason I started scanning everything. This way, I could create virtual pages of cards using the same design but issued years apart. Unfortunately, as with most of my projects, I'm destined to never finishing this one.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of virtual pages. I've always wanted to do something like that with the 1956 Topps-style cards out there.
ReplyDeleteAs for storage, Daulton and Howard's Bowman's Best cards exchanged pleasantries, spent some time in the scanner together and then they ended up back in their 1994 and 2011 Phillies binders, respectively.