Phillies Lose Pitcher’s Duel With Poor Defense

Chan Ho Park received little to no show of confidence heading into last night’s showdown against Johan Santana and the New York Mets. Shame on all of us. Yes, the Phillies lost to the Mets by a 1-0 score, but Park did everything you could have wanted him to do except score a run or two.

Santana shut down the Phillies offense from the start and proved why he is the best pitcher in the National League, and possibly in all of baseball (with all apologies to Zack Greinke). The ace of the Mets starting rotation went seven strong innings, allowing just two hits and striking out ten. While he walked three Phillies batters, two were to Park.

The story of the game was the lack of offense from the Phillies, who left thirteen base runners on base and failed to move runners along in key situations. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jayson Werth were a combined 0-11. Howard and Werth struck out three times each.

The Mets were equally inept throughout most of the game and only scored their lone run when Pedro Feliz threw a ball past Howard at first trying to make a play on a slow grounder. When Feliz’s throw got away, Carlos Delgado scored from second base. Feliz is usually solid defensively so it is hard to criticize him too much. Like any player on Charlie Manuel‘s team Feliz was giving his best effort. Unfortunately for the Phillies Feliz had little chance of making the play anyway and this one just happened to go bad.

With the loss the Phillies still find themselves in first place as the Florida Marlins also lost last night to the Atlanta Braves. The Phillies and Mets wrap up their brief two game series in New York tonight with Jamie Moyer taking the mound for the Phillies (more on that later today) and Mike Pelfrey starting for the Mets.

This was originally posted on Macho Row.