Phillies baseball finally arrived at home for the first time in the 2010 regular season today. Cole Hamels (2-0, 5.06) was nothing special and the offense bailed him out with seven unanswered runs to improve their record to 6-1 on this young season. This also marked the Phillies first win in a home opener since 2005, when they beat the Nationals, 8-4.
Cole Hamels took the mound for the Phillies in the home opener and pitched mediocre at best. The Nationals struck first in the top of the second when Hamels gave up a solo homer to Josh Willingham for a 1-0 lead.
Hamels seemed to settle in during the third inning as he got two ground outs and a strike out for a 1-2-3 inning. The Phillies could not strike in the bottom half as Hamels grounded into an inning ending double play to erase a Carlos Ruiz walk.
The top of the fourth is when Cole had his trouble inning. He gave up a lead off single to Christian Guzman and then hit Adam Dunn. Immediately following that, Hamels struck out Willingham and Desmond and looked to avoid any damage. Pudge Rodriguez singled in Guzman to extend the lead to 2-0. Hamels then walked Adam Kennedy to load the bases for pitcher, Jason Marquis. Easy out, right?..Wrong. Marquis doubled to left to score Dunn and Desmond to quickly make it a 4-0 Washington lead.
The Phillies finally got on the board in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Polanco singled and Utley drew a walk. Ryan Howard would plate Polanco with an RBI single and Jayson Werth scored Utley on a fielder's choice to cut the lead in half, 4-2.
Hamels had a 1-2-3 top of the fifth and the Phillies bats came out swinging in the bottom half. After a Victorino strikeout, Carlos Ruiz singled. Cole Hamels sqaured to bunt and got it down and Nats catcher, Ivan Rodriguez, tried to get Ruiz at second but made a throwing error so both were safe with one down. With Jimmy Rollins being scratched from the lineup at the last minute, replacement Juan Castro doubled to left center to score Ruiz to make it 4-3. Polanco would follow with a single to plate Hamels and Castro and give the Phils a 5-4 lead. Up next was Chase Utley and he did not disappoint. Utley smacked a two-run homer to right to make it 7-4.
Hamels would get two outs in the sixth but left with men on first and third. Chad Durbin cleaned up the mess by getting a ground out to end any threat. Jose Contreras struck out two of three in his 1-2-3 seventh and Danys Baez averted a lead off walk to keep the Nationals at bay in the eighth. Ryan Madson closed the door with a perfect ninth, which included a strikeout.
APTER THOUGHTS: A somewhat poor showing by Cole Hamels was overshadowed by the seven unanswered runs scored by the Phillies offense. A few areas of concern to begin with as Rollins was held out of the game with a strained right calf suffered just before the game. Jayson Werth left after his at bat in the fifth with a sore hip. Hopefully neither injury will be significant.
Back to Cole....everyone can say all they want about how he is terrible and blah blah blah. If you ask me, what was a 4-0 game this year, would have been 7-0 with the 2009 Hamels. Despite giving up those runs with two outs, Hamels kept chipping away without losing his composure. Although it is not much to take, it is a positive and I believe he is heading in the right direction. It is a long season and he has much to improve on so give it some time to be fixed now rather than later. I mean, the offense is scoring in bunches so it does not pose a problem just yet.
On to the Phillies bats. No surprise Placido Polanco (.484) had another big day. He had two hits, scored twice and had two RBI's. Utley (.346) had the big homer for insurance and Howard (.375) had two hits and an RBI on the day. Juan Castro (.250) had a big hit in the game to replace J-Roll and it was good to see the Phils reserves could come up in the clutch.
The Phillies bullpen looked very impressive today. They held the Nationals without a hit in 3.1 innings of work and was a big reason as to why the Phils held on to win today. Let's just hope that it stays this way when Lidge and Romero return.
Just a fun fact, Jason Marquis has an 0-2 record with a 12.96 ERA in his two starts against the Phillies so far this season. Not so great.
Up next...The Phillies have an off day on Tuesday before returning to action on Wednesday against the Nationals for a 7:05pm start. Kyle Kendrick (0-0, 11.25) will look to regain some of his spring momentum and avoid another rough outing as he will take the hill against Craig Stammen (0-0, 7.20).
I will be attending the game on Wednesday and will provide a full recap after I return home.
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