Game 159 - Thursday Afternoon, October 1st in Philadelphia
Record - 62-97, 5th Place, 27 games behind the Mets
One Sentence Summary: Jerad Eickhoff and the Phillies completed the sweep of the Mets in a near empty Citizens Bank Park.
What It Means: The unexpected sweep means that the Phillies have just a one game lead over the Reds for sole possession of last place and the #1 pick in June's amateur player draft. It also means they'll need to win just one game against the Marlins this weekend to avoid a 100 loss season. It's the little things.
This game was moved up to a noon start time to get ahead of the storms expected to hit our area beginning Thursday night. The paid attendance of 13,238 was the lowest attendance in Citizens Bank Park history and various Tweets I read had the actual attendance at around 1,500 die hard fans/lost souls.
What Happened: Eickhoff had another fantastic outing, throwing seven shutout innings and striking out 10. In his final four starts of the season, Eickhoff owns a 0.96 ERA over 28 innings pitched with 33 strikeouts to just seven walks.
Home runs from Darin Ruf (two-run shot in the fourth) and Andres Blanco (solo home run in the eighth) provided more than enough offense for the win.
Featured Card: Again, I'll need to resort to posting a card I don't actually own. I listed Eickhoff's complete baseball card checklist in this post, and this is one of his two cards I haven't featured yet. The Pelicans were the Rangers' High-A affiliate in 2013, but they switched affiliations to the Cubs beginning with the 2015 season.
On behalf of the Mets... You are welcome. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'll be rooting for the Phillies this weekend. Having been there before, I don't wish 100 losses on anybody... well, except the Yankees (of course).
What a nice little end of the season surprise! Winning baseball!
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