Game 46 - Tuesday Night, May 24th in Detroit
Record - 25-21, 3rd place, 3 games behind the Nationals
One Sentence Summary: The offense's May nap continued as Justin Verlander and the Tigers easily defeated the Phillies, 3-1.
What It Means: For the second time in two series, the Phillies find themselves once again needing a win in the final game in order to avoid a series sweep.
What Happened: Verlander and closer Francisco Rodriguez held the Phillies to five hits, with Verlander striking out 10 in his eight innings of work. Jeremy Hellickson kept the Phils in the game with three runs allowed over his seven innings.
Ryan Howard, serving as the team's DH, singled in the game raising his average to .159. It was Howard's first single since April 29th.
Featured Card: This is the sole Verlander card in my Phillies collection, pairing the pitcher with his 1964 counterpart, Jim Bunning. This card has always bothered me since it clearly shows Bunning in his second stint with the team in the early 1970s, wearing the then modern Phillies uniform. It's little details like this that seem to be neglected by Topps on a fairly regular basis.
Recently added to The Phillies Room - 2016 Season Summary page with game results and links to game summary posts.
Why did Topps even pair Verlander with Bunning? Should have been Hamels & Bunning, or Verlander & McLain, or Lolich, or whoever was the Tigers' ace at the time.
ReplyDeleteAnother entry for the "That's just Topps being Topps" file!
I never bothered to look at the back of this card until I read your comment and I wondered myself, why are these two pitchers paired up?
ReplyDeleteThe back of the card shows the 1964 and 2012 innings pitched leaders. Verlander had the most IP in 2012 with 238.1. Bunning had the FOURTH highest IP total in 1964 with 284.1 behind Don Drysdale (321.1), Larry Jackson (297.2) and Bob Gibson (287.1).
Confirmation that this particular baseball card makes no sense and there's no real reason for it to exist.