NLCS Game 4: San Francisco Giants Push Philadelphia Phillies to the Brink

The Philadelphia Phillies have nobody to blame for their Game 4 loss to the San Francisco Giants but themselves.

The Phillies made a series of coaching mistakes and mental mistakes and lost to the Giants 6-5 in Game 4 and now face a 3-1 series hole as they head into Game 4 and a rematch of Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay.

Let’s take a look at the Phillies’ mistakes in this game.It started for the Phillies in the fifth inning. With runners on second and third and one out, Shane Victorino singled up the middle. Ben Francisco scored and Carlos Ruiz was thrown at home.

 

There is absolutely no way Sam Perlozzo can send Ruiz in that spot. The ball that Victorino hit was a sharp groundball up the middle. It wasn’t a 30-hopper that just barely made it through.

Perlozzo has to be 100 percent sure that Ruiz is going to score. Runs have been too precious in this series to be careless in that situation. Instead of having runners on first and third with one out, the Phillies had just a runner on first with two outs.

Something that was overlooked on that play—how is Victorino not on second? There was no chance of the throw from Aaron Rowand being cut off. Victorino had to be on second.

It didn’t end up hurting the Phillies that Victorino wasn’t on second because of Placido Polanco‘s double, but it’s plays or lack thereof that have made me scratch my head in this series.

Then in the eighth, how does Manuel not bunt with Jimmy Rollins at the plate and Jayson Werth on second with nobody out? I thought Charlie Manuel said before the game his team was going to play “small ball?”

That was a must-bunt situation for Manuel. Rollins hasn’t done much and Manuel had to believe that Francisco and Ruiz could have gotten the run home with less than two outs.

Now, people will say it didn’t matter because Francisco and Ruiz struck out after Rollins popped up. Having a runner on third completely changes the dynamic of the inning and perhaps the pitch selection to both batters.

The biggest decision by Manuel in this game was his decision to bring in Roy Oswalt to start the ninth. At the time, I didn’t have a problem with it. Then I found out he threw a bullpen session earlier in the day and I almost fell off my chair.

Manuel was going to make a guy throw a bullpen session in the afternoon and then come out in the ninth in a tie game later that night on two days’ rest? No thanks.

Oswalt wasn’t sharp and gave up the game-winning run when Juan Uribe hit a deep flyball to left that scored Aubrey Huff. Speaking of that Uribe at-bat, it was another mental mistake by the Phillies.

Uribe has a bad wrist and couldn’t catch up to Oswalt’s fastball in the AB. Why on Earth would Ruiz call a change-up and Oswalt agree to throw it? The only thing they are doing is helping Uribe out. Terrible.

Here are some other observations from Game 4…

Joe Blanton threw two wild pitches in 175.2 regular season innings and threw two wild pitches in the first inning of Game 4.

Despite his less than stellar performance (three runs in 4.2 IP), I still believe it was the right decision to start Blanton over Halladay.

The Tampa Bay Rays took SS Tim Beckham with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 Draft when they needed a catcher. Fail.

Home plate umpire Wally Bell was all over the place.

Can the Phillies come back from this 3-1 deficit? Absolutely. With Halladay, Oswalt, and Cole Hamels in the next three games, they have a very good chance of coming back.

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NLCS Game 3: Matt Cain Shuts Down Phillies

In a press conference the other day, Philadelphia Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel said his team really hasn’t hit since the first half of last season. Well, the man knows his team and knows what he is talking about.

Since the start of the second half last and including this year’s postseason, the Phillies have hit .245 as a team. Things only got worse for the Philly batters in Game 3 of the NLCS.

San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Matt Cain completely shut down the Phillies for seven innings, and Javier Lopez and Brian Wilson finished the job as the Giants beat the Phillies 3-0 to take a 2-1 series lead in their best-of-seven NLCS.

Cain pitched seven strong innings allowing just two hits, no runs, three walks and struck out five in the 119-pitch effort. Was Cain “Oh my god” great? No, he wasn’t, but he was good enough.

Out of his 119 pitches, only 69 of them were strikes, so his ball-to-strike ratio was almost 1-to-1. He also pegged Carlos Ruiz and Shane Victorino. Not too impressive, but Cain used a combination of four-seem fastballs, changeups and sliders to keep the Phillies’ hitters at bay.

The key for Cain in this game was the above mentioned changeup. It was as good as it gets today for Cain. He threw 30 changeups, and 14 of them were for strikes.

The key? He kept it down. Here is his pitch type plot courtesy of the PitchFX tool…

The changeups are in yellow, and Cain did an outstanding job all afternoon of keeping the change down, so when the Philly batters did hit the ball, it was on the ground.

Cain now hasn’t allowed a run in two postseason starts.

Here are some other observations from Game 3…

The way Cole Hamels went through the first nine batters, I thought he would throw a perfect game today. Nine up and nine down, and the Giants looked completely overmatched early.

The Pat Burrell walk with two outs in the fourth was a killer. Burrell walks and then Cody Ross singles, then Aubrey Huff singled, and just like that, the Giants were up 2-0.

Ross has a 1.444 OPS this series. Just sayin’.

The Phillies won’t win this series if Chase Utley continues to play like he is playing. His error in the fifth that led to the Giants’ third run was a back breaker, and he is batting .100 in this series at the plate.

How bad is Jimmy Rollins hurting right now? The guy couldn’t make it to second on a ball hit to the right field wall in the ninth. Granted the ball was scorched, but a healthy Rollins makes it to second on that hit.

Manuel is making the right decision to go with Joe Blanton in Game 4. Even if they lose, the Phillies will have Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Hamels on full rest for the final three games of the series. I will take my chances with those three down the stretch.

Wilson is locked in right now. 2.1 IP and 5 K’s.

Game 4 is Wednesday night at 7:57 PM est.

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NLCS Game 1: Cody Ross Rocks Doc, Giants Beat Roy Halladay

Regular season baseball is a funny game. Postseason baseball is knee-slapping, Will Ferrell in Anchorman game.

Of all the things that we thought about as we entered Game 1 of the NLCS, Cody Ross hitting two home runs off of Roy Halladay wasn’t one of them. Every postseason like clockwork, we see players who we would never expect to become heroes do the unthinkable.

 

Ross tagged Halladay for two solo HRs, and Tim Lincecum outdueled the Phillies’ ace as the Giants won 4-3 to take Game 1 of their best-of-seven NLCS.

This game featured two of the games best in Lincecum and Halladay, and the game kind of lived up to the hype. Were both pitchers great? Absolutely not. But they were both very good.

Halladay made four mistakes in his seven innings of work.

The first two came to Ross. Halladay tried to bury an inside fastball to Ross in the third, and he missed bad and Ross deposited it 417 ft into the leftfield bleachers. The hit by Ross was the first one Halladay had given up in the postseason.

Then in the fifth, Halladay made the same mistake to Ross. Again he tried to throw an inside fastball and again missed and again Ross hit it into the leftfield bleachers.

Take a look at the pitch plots on the two Ross ABs.

 

 

The turquoise plot indicates the ball that was hit in the AB and as you can see, the pitches that Ross hit out were almost in the same spot. The other mistakes Halladay made were in the sixth, and the pitch sequence to Pat Burrell was the turning point in the game.

With two outs and Buster Posey on first base, Halladay threw a perfect cutter to Burrell that home plate umpire Derryl Cousins called a ball. In all fairness to Cousins, he hadn’t called that pitch a strike all game, but that pitch was a strike.

On the very next pitch, Burrell ripped a ball to the wall for a *double. I put an asterisk next to the double because any other leftfielder besides Raul Ibanez would have caught that ball. Ibanez catches that ball and the non-strike call to Burrell doesn’t become such a big deal.

The last mistake Halladay made was to Juan Uribe, who was the next batter in the inning. Halladay left another fastball over the plate and Uribe singled up the middle to give the Giants a 4-1 lead.

On the flip side, Lincecum only made two mistakes.

The first one was to Carlos Ruiz in the third and the second one was to Jayson Werth in the sixth. Both were on fastballs out over the plate and both were hit for HRs to rightfield.

Lincecum struck out eight over seven innings of work. He only threw 41 percent first-pitch strikes, but rebounded in the count because of a wicked changeup that he threw for a strike 70 percent of the time.

Here are some other observations from Game 1…

Very impressed with Javier Lopez in this game. He went through Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in the eighth with no problem what so ever. Didn’t think he had that in him.

I thought Bruce Bochy managed a great game. Pinch-running Nate Schierholtz for Burrell in the sixth was a smart move at the time, and I loved the fact that he went to Brian Wilson in the eighth to face Werth.

Jimmy Rollins has gotten old fast. The 2007 season seems like 10 years ago. He has a $8.5 million club option for 2011, which the Phillies will certainly pick up, but I doubt he will be in a Philly uniform after 2011.

I can’t wait for the WWE to have a lookalike tag-team match at WrestleMania. Edge and Werth vs. CM Punk and Wilson. This needs to be done.

Is Game 2 a must-win game for the Phillies? No, not at all. Winning Game 2 would certainly help, but the Phillies are a team that can come back from an 0-2 series deficit.

Game 2 is Sunday at 7:57 PM est and will pit Jonathan Sanchez against Roy Oswalt.

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NLCS Preview and Prediction: San Francisco Giants Vs. Philadelphia Phillies

I will go on record as saying the matchup between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies is the most anticipated NLCS we have seen in quite some time. I can’t remember a NLCS where people are looking forward to it as much as this one.

The main reason? The pitching matchups. These two teams feature All-World pitchers and it kicks off in Game 1 tonight with Tim Lincecum against Roy Halladay.

Let’s take a look at the entire series at a glance:

Schedule

Game 1: Saturday, October 16 at 7:57 PM EST. Tim Lincecum vs. Roy Halladay

Game 2: Sunday, October 17 at 8:00 PM EST. Jonathan Sanchez vs. Roy Oswalt

Game 3: Tuesday, October 19 at 4:00 PM EST. Cole Hamels vs. Matt Cain

Game 4: Wednesday, October 20 at 7:30 PM EST. Joe Blanton vs. Madison Bumgarner

*Game 5: Thursday, October 21 at 7:30 PM EST. Halladay vs. Lincecum

*Game 6: Saturday, October 23 at 4:00 PM EST. Sanchez vs. Oswalt

*Game 7: Sunday, October 24 at 8:00 PM EST. Cain vs. Hamels

 

 

Prediction

Lincecum vs. Halladay. Sanchez vs. Oswalt. Hamels vs. Cain. If you are a fan of pitching, this matchup is baseball porn for you. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Halladay, coming off his no-hitter in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds goes up against Lincecum, who is coming off a dominant performance himself with 14 K=s against the Atlanta Braves. This Game 1 matchup is worth the price of admission alone for the whole series.

Not only do we get this tonight, we could also get this matchup next Thursday. I personally can’t wait.

I think coming into this series, the Phillies have a couple of concerns.

First, despite sweeping the Reds, they really didn’t hit the ball. They only hit .212 as a team in the three games. Their big outburst of seven runs in Game 3 of the NLDS was aided by four Red errors.

Jayson Werth (.167), Placido Polanco (.111), and Jimmy Rollins (.091) all hit under .200 against the Reds, and if the Phillies are going to score some runs against the Giants’ stout pitching staff, these three guys are going to have to wake up.

I would also be concerned with that Game 4 matchup of Blanton vs. Bumgarner. If we ranked all the pitchers in this series, Blanton would end up on the short end of the stick.

Not only that, but he hasn’t appeared in a game since October 3. That is a long layoff, and now he will be asked to win a pivotal game on the road against one of the better young pitchers in the game. That’s a very tough task.

As for the Giants, I like the decision to start Sanchez in Game 2. His numbers during the regular season were better on the road (2.86 on road. 3.26 at home), and he carried his hot pitching on the road with a masterful performance in Game 3 against the Braves (11 Ks and two hits in 7.1 IP).

Plus, the Phillies have a very left-handed dominated lineup, so getting him to pitch twice in this series is a good thing.

My concerns with the Giants are twofold.

First, can Javier Lopez continue to get lefties out late in the game? It will most likely be him who will face Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, or Raul Ibanez in a big spot. Lopez is pitching well, but I just have my doubts about him against that caliber of left-handed hitting late in the game.

Second, how are the Giants going to score runs in this series? I have a hard time seeing them scoring enough runs to beat the Phillies. Asking your pitchers to win 2-1 every game is a tall task.

Outside of Buster Posey, the one guy who needs to do damage in this series is Aubrey Huff. He had a nice NLDS, hitting .267 with a .389 OBP, but he needs to start driving the ball.

It’s very hard to piece together hits off of Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels. If the Giants are going to win, they are going to need some quick strikes offensively. Going up against three righties in this series, Huff needs to be the guy for the Giants who hits a couple of HRs.

If I were to compare this series to a college basketball game it would be looking at an ACC team against a team from the Big West Conference in the tournament.

The Big West school has a couple of good players that they will try to ride for the game, but overall, they don’t match up well. The school from the Big West conference will try to slow the game down, make it a low-scoring game, and then try to steal it late with a three.

That strategy will work for one game, but not for a series of games against the same team. Talent usually wins out.

In this case, the Phillies are the ACC team.

Phillies in 6

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Philadelphia Phillies Prove Too Much for Reds, Complete NLDS Sweep

When Philadelphia Phillies’ LHP Cole Hamels took the mound in the 2009 postseason, he looked like a guy that had lost all confidence in himself. Hamels took the mound last night against the Cincinnati Reds the complete opposite of that guy in 2009.

Hamels pitched a complete game shutout against the Reds as the Phillies won 2-0 to sweep the Reds 3-0 in their best-of-five NLDS. This is the third straight year that the Phillies will advance to the NLCS.

 

Hamels in this game was just flat out awesome! There is no other way to describe it. His fastball was popping (average of 92 and high of 95) and his change-up was lethal.

Hamels threw his change-up 33 times last night and 26 of them were thrown for strikes. Impressive. What might have been more impressive was that Red hitters swung and missed at 36 percent of those change-ups.

That a look at his strike zone plot on change-ups via Pitchfx…

The change-ups are in yellow. As he can see, he pounded the lower half of the zone with those change-ups. Very rarely did he miss up in the zone and that’s when a pitcher can get hurt.

Hamels overall struck out nine, didn’t walk a batter, and gave up just five hits in the 119 pitch effort. Hamels is now 6-3 in his postseason career. He is the second pitcher to win six postseason games before turning 27 years old. The other is Jim Palmer.

Here are some other observations from this game…

The biggest play of this game might have occurred in the bottom of the first. After Drew Stubbs led off the game with a single, Brandon Phillips hit a rare mistake from Hamels into the left center field gap that Shane Victorino ran down for the first out.

If that ball gets by Victorino, the game is tied at one and Phillips is standing on third with nobody out.

Johnny Cueto was very good in this game and will be overshadowed by Hamels’ performance. After a rocky first, he settled down and pitched five very solid innings. The only reason he didn’t pitch deeper into the game was because with the Reds desperate for offense, he was pinch-hit for in the fifth.

Note to Dusty Baker: If you are going to pinch-hit for your pitcher, can someone other than Miguel Cairo do it? He’s an automatic out.

Homer Bailey was very good for two innings. I thought he was going to give the Reds a Sid Fernandez-like Game 7 of the 1986 World Series performance to keep his team in the game and spark the team offensively, but it just never happened.

Quick 2011 prediction: Bailey wins 15 plus games for the Reds next year.

If the Phillies are going to beat either the Braves or Giants in the next round, Jayson Werth and Jimmy Rollins are going to have to wake up. Combined they hit .129 in the three games with no extra base hits.

Scott Rolen might have played his worst three-game stretch defensively ever. Outside one or two plays, he looked terrible all series.

Reds fans chanting “Cheat-er, cheat-er” when Chase Utley came to the plate was fantastic.

Though I am sure they didn’t think it was so great when he launched one to right center to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead.

Regardless if the Braves and Giants series closes out Monday night or Wednesday, Game 1 of the NLCS will start Saturday in Philadelphia.

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Cincinnati Reds Implosion Gives Philadelphia Phillies NLDS Game 2 Victory

Four errors, three hit batsmen, two innings where the seams came off the baseball, and one massive implosion.

That pretty much sums up the Cincinnati Reds’ performance in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Reds lost to the Phillies 7-4 and now are on the brink of elimination.

This was a game of two halves.

Before the Reds’ implosion, they actually led 4-0 in this game. They got a leadoff HR by Brandon Phillips, they capitalized on two Chase Utley errors in the second, and then got a rocket shot off of the bat of Jay Bruce to give the Reds a 3-0 lead.

Bronson Arroyo on the mound was mixing up his pitches and keeping Philly batters really off balance. I thought Arroyo was pretty good. Did he get lucky on occasion like when Jimmy Rollins ripped a one-hop line drive to Phillips, which turned into a double play? Sure, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

Everything seemed to be going their way. Then the fifth inning happened.

With two outs and a runner on first, Shane Victorino hit a groundball into hole between first and second and for some odd reason, Phillips tried to smother the ball. I am not sure what he was thinking there. The ball bounced off his chest and Victorino reached.

The very next batter, Placido Polanco hit a sharp groundball to Scott Rolen, which he proceeded to boot as well. Back to back errors and the Phillies were set up with the bases loaded for Utley. If you give the Phillies extra outs, they are going to make you pay and that’s exactly what they did.

Utley ripped a single to right and the Phillies cut the deficit in half to 4-2.

If Reds fans thought that was bad, then the seventh inning was a nightmare.

After the Phillies tacked on another run in the sixth thanks to Red pitchers hitting two batters and walking two batters in the inning, Dusty Baker went to Aroldis Chapman to hold the lead. Yeah, that didn’t quite happen.

Chapman hit Utley to lead off the inning. In Chapman’s defense, it didn’t appear Utley actually got hit. Derek Jeter was vilified for faking getting hit a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if their will be the national outcry over Utley’s acting job? I am guessing no.

After striking out Ryan Howard (Howard had no chance), Jayson Werth hit a slow roller up a long third, which Rolen proceeded to throw to second. Utley was called safe and the whole dynamic of the inning changed.

Why Rolen decided to throw to second is beyond me. All his momentum was headed towards first. To try to throw across your body to nail a fast runner at second is very hard to do. Rolen would have easily gotten Werth at first.

If the dynamic of the game changed on the Rolen play, the dynamic of the series changed on the next AB.

Rollins hit a little flare to right and Bruce lost the ball in the lights. Utley scored and when Phillips dropped the relay throw, Werth scored, the Phillies took a 5-4 lead and never looked back.

Game. Set. Match.

There are some games where teams get beat and there are games where teams lose. The Reds got beat by Roy Halladay on Wednesday night. On Friday night, the Reds lost.

This loss was a disaster and really showed why the Reds are about two years away from really contending for a World Series. World Series contenders don’t lose games like that. They win games like that.

One thing lost in this game was how mediocre Roy Oswalt was for the Phillies. He really didn’t have much tonight. His fastball was flat and he couldn’t get his change or curve over for strikes.

I am sure he will be better the next time out, but he really wasn’t good in Game 2.

The Reds will be game playing in front of their home crowd for Game 3 on Sunday night, but the Phillies will find a way to pull it out in the end. World Series contenders usually do.

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Halladay vs. Halladay: Comparing Roy Halladay’s 2010 No-Hitters

With Roy Halladay becoming the fourth pitcher in baseball history to throw two no-hitters in the same season, I thought it would be interesting to see how his playoff no-hitter compared to his perfect game on May 29 against the Florida Marlins.

Here is the tail of the tape:

One could make the argument that Halladay was actually more dominant in his no-hitter than he was in his perfect game. Nineteen swinging strikes in his no-hitter versus his perfect game is pretty impressive. He also threw fewer pitches, had more swings and misses, and threw more first pitch strikes.

Only Halladay could top himself from a perfect game.

Regardless, the fact that I am even comparing two games like this is almost surreal. Halladay is certainly one of a kind.

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Reds-Phillies: Roy Halladay Does the Unthinkable, Throws a Playoff No-Hitter

I don’t think there enough adjectives out there to describe the pitching performance given by Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay on Wednesday.

Awesome, incredible, spectacular, or whatever word you want to use, the fact is Halladay was simply amazing.

Halladay pitched the second no-hitter in postseason history as the Phillies defeated the Cincinnati Reds 4-0 in Game 1 of their NLDS series.

Halladay walked one and struck out eight in nine innings of work. He joins Don Larsen as the only two pitchers to throw postseason no-hitters. Of course, Larsen’s gem was a perfect game.

Halladay also joins Johnny Vander Meer, Allie Reynolds, Virgil Trucks, and Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers to throw two no-hitters in a single season.

As I watching this game, I don’t recall ever watching a baseball game where one team—in this case the Reds—didn’t hit a ball hard all night. Don’t get me wrong, Halladay was great, but this was a feeble performance by the Reds.

There wasn’t even a threat of a hit against Halladay. Halladay just carved them up inside and out, and I am not sure he even broke a sweat in doing such.

Halladay threw first pitch strikes to 25 out of the 28 batters he faced and only threw 25 balls out of the 104 pitches he threw. He was beyond video game good.

As for the Reds, is there anything positive they can take out of this game for Game 2? I will be the bearer of good news and say there were two positives.

For one, it can’t get any worse. The Reds officially hit the bottom of the barrel in Game 1. They can only go up from here.

Second, their bullpen was actually really good tonight. After Edinson Volquez gave them 1.2 innings of semi-useless baseball, Travis Wood, Logan Ondrusek, and Bill Bray pitched 6.1 of one-hit baseball. Dusty Baker also didn’t have to use Aroldis Chapman tonight, so he could potentially use him for two innings on Friday.

Once again, congratulations to Mr. Halladay. You are truly one of the greatest pitchers I have ever seen. Just amazing.

Game 2 will be Friday night at 6:07.

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NLDS Preview and Prediction: Cincinnati Reds vs. Philadelphia Phillies

This is a matchup of David versus Goliath. The Cincinnati Reds have a good team, but the Phillies have a great team.

Let’s take a look at the series at a glance…

Schedule

Game 1: Wednesday, Oct. 6 at 5:07 PM est. Edinson Volquez vs. Roy Halladay

Game 2: Friday, Oct. 8 at 6:07 PM est. Bronson Arroyo vs. Roy Oswalt

Game 3: Sunday, Oct. 10 at TBD. Cole Hamels vs. Johnny Cueto

*Game 4: Monday, Oct. 11 at TBD.

*Game 5: Wednesday, Oct 13 at TBD.

* Denotes If Necessary

Season Series

Phillies, 5-2.

Prediction

This is a terrible matchup for the Reds. The team that has the pitching disadvantage in a series that will be played in two hitter’s ballparks, usually ends up on the short end of the stick.

Not only are the Reds the underdogs, but they already fired the first surprise of the series when Dusty Baker announced that Edinson Volquez would start Game 1 of the series. I guess the Reds saw enough out of Volquez in his last four starts to give him the nod.

In his last four starts, Volquez had a 1.95 ERA and struck out 31 in 27.2 IP. I personally, would have gone with Bronson Arroyo. While Volquez has been hot lately, he is too much of a wild card in my opinion to put him up against Halladay in Game 1.

If the Reds are going to win this series, it’s going to because of their stars. Jay Bruce (1.611 OPS in last seven days) and Drew Stubbs (1.326 OPS and four steals in last seven days) need to stay hot and Joey Votto needs to be Joey Votto.

Perhaps the biggest X-factor of this series is closer Francisco Cordero. Which Cordero is going to show up for the Reds? The Cordero that had a 2.19 ERA in August or the one that had a 5.11 ERA in September?

If Cordero blows a save in this series, the Reds are toast.

As for the Phillies, they are peaking at the right time and with Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels on top of their game, they are the heavy favorites in this series.

The only way I can see the Phillies losing this series is if their bullpen implodes—and I am talking to you Brad Lidge. Lidge had a 0.73 ERA in August and September, but he also walked nine guys in his last 12.1 innings.

Walk a guy in front of Scott Rolen and he will make you pay.

Unless that happens, I don’t foresee the Reds winning a game in this series. I love the Reds and think they will win the World Series in 2012, but they are a year away from contending for a World Series.

Phillies in three.

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MLB Playoffs: Atlanta Braves Hold Serve, Defeat Phillies

The Atlanta Braves did their best to give Bobby Cox a heart attack on the final Sunday of the regular season, but they held on to defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-7.

The Braves pounded eight Philly pitchers for 14 hits in the winning effort. Matt Diaz contributed with three hits and Derrek Lee hit a frozen rope for his 19th HR of the season in the winning effort.

Tim Hudson was very solid over seven innings and Billy Wagner closed things out in the ninth to secure the win. Wagner was pretty shaky in the eighth, but had electric stuff in the last inning. He whiffed the side in the ninth on three unhittable sliders.

Now the Braves sit back and wait. Whatever happens in the San Diego Padres – San Francisco Giants game, the Braves didn’t play their last game on Sunday.

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