Game 82 - Thursday Afternoon, June 30th in Philadelphia
One Sentence Summary: The Sox took advantage of the Phillies shaky middle relief, salvaging the final game of the three-game set, 5-2.
What It Means: After the loss, the Phils record is 51-31 and they have a four game lead over the Braves.
What Went Wrong: It looked as if Cole Hamels was well on his way to finally notching his tenth win of the season when a line drive off the bat of Adrian Gonzalez knocked the glove off his hand and sent him to the showers after four innings. Relievers David Herndon and Andrew Carpenter couldn't fend off the Sox offense, as they allowed all five runs in their combined four innings of work.
X-rays on Hamels' hand were negative, although it's too soon to say if he'll make his next start or not.
The offense sputtered along, managing just four hits and going 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Two of those hits came from Ryan Howard, including his ninth inning two-run home run.
Featured Card: The Phils failed to sweep the Sox at home in the three-game series, something they had done once before back in June 2000. The winning pitchers in those three games were Jeff Brantley, Randy Wolf and Steve Schrenk. I had Schrenk sign this card in the summer of 2000 during the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons' visit to Durham to take on the Bulls. During an ill-fated two and a half year period in which I lived in Raleigh, I never missed a chance to catch the Red Barons when they came to town. When I asked Schrenk to sign this card, he was honestly impressed I had it in my collection and he flipped it over to review the stats before signing and handing it back to me.
Schrenk is still with the Phillies organization as the pitching coach for the Low-A Lakewood BlueClaws.
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