Philiadelphia Phillies Make Their Own Luck in Wild Win Over Chicago Cubs

Skipper Charlie Manuel wouldn’t say his team got lucky in their wild 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs, but that was plainly obvious to anyone watching.

Geovaney Soto certainly isn’t a scrub and is not a guy who will make many mistakes, so when he drops a perfect throw that would have allowed him to tag out Brian Schneider by a good 10 feet or so, a lot of it is luck.

But, as is usually the case, the Phillies made their own luck. Poor base-running prevented them from scoring for eight innings, but good plate discipline and clutch hits allowed them the opportunity to steal a game for once, and they milked their luck for all it was worth.

They gave Carlos Marmol fits as they watched every “please-swing-at-me” pitch go right past them to run up the count and eventually get the walks they needed. Then they got the clutch hit they needed out of Polanco and third-base coach Sam Perlozzo wasn’t about to let the team’s lucky streak go to waste.

“One of those where you pretty much have to send him, and I didn’t feel good about it,” Perlozzo said. “That’s the beauty of the game. Sometimes the ball bounces your way, and sometimes it doesn’t.

And the ball continued to bounce the Phillies’ way when Soto wasn’t able to corral a wild pitch that went off the tip of his glove and bounced around the backstop, allowing Ross Gload to come home and give the Phillies a 2-1 lead that they would eventually build on.

All of this, by the way, was done with two outs.

Their was no quit in this team. They decided they were going to play out all nine innings, while the Cubs felt as though they could wrap the whole thing up after eight.

Playing hard and playing until the end is how teams create their own good luck, and complacency is how teams fall onto the bad luck the Cubs experienced.

“It just goes to show the game’s not over until it’s over.”

Sure does, Charlie. Sure does.

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