phrustrated philly phan

The Phillies defeated the New York Mets tonight 5-3, but Chase Utley went 0 for 5 ending his hitting streak at 35 games. Utley has given us a great show over the past 35 games. 23 of his 35 games were multi-hit games and he hit over .400. He gained national recognition often being the lead story of Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight. So congratulations and thanks to Chase for a great storyline to follow and for playing baseball the right way everyday. I can't wait to watch the rest of his career.

Onto the game. Randy Wolf made his second start of the season tonight and was no more impressive than his last. He is clearly not up to full strength yet and I believe it will take at least the rest of the year to regain his strength. He did battle tonight though. He went only four innings. In the fourth, he got himself into trouble when he allowed El Duque to hit a triple on an 0-2 pitch with 2 outs. After making Hernandez look foolish on fastballs and curveballs, Lieby called for a change up and speed up his bat. Reyes hit a single to score El Duque to give the Mets a 3-2 lead at the time. Lieby needs to know better than to call for change ups to poor hitting pitchers. This was inexcusable. The bullpen got the job done again tonight. Aaron Fultz pitched the fifth and was relieved by Ryan Madson in the sixth. Madson gave up three hits but got his job done. Arthur Rhodes pitched a scoreless eighth and Flash Gordon had a 1-2-3 ninth. Gordon recorded his 27th save. Overall the pitching staff was good enough. Not great but only gave up three runs to the powerful New York Mets.

Offensively, the Phillies played well. They stole bases and bunted and overall put pressure on the defense. Mike Lieberthal executed two sacrifice bunts for the Phillies. Wolf drove in the first run in the second inning with a sacrifice fly. Then in the fourth Victorino scored his second run of the game on a balk by El Duque. An inning later David Delluci was off on the pitch and scored from first on a double by Ryan Howard. Delluci got his first hit off a lefty this year with home run off Darren Oliver. Ryan Howard followed that up with his 37th home run in the ninth for an insurance run. Aaron Rowand had another terrible night at the plate. He went 0-5 with 3 strikeouts and 4 runners left on base. It is time that he platoons with Victorino. I would rather have Pat Burrell in the lineup instead of Rowand. Danny Sandoval and Pat Burrell both drew walk in their pinch hit appearances. Jimmy Rollins had two stolen bases both in the first after he drew a walk to start the game. David Delluci and Abe Nunez also both had stolen bases.

Tip of Cap- Charlie Manuel and the coaching staff for employing small ball tatics. The Phillies stole 4 bases tonight and executed two sacrifice bunts. Finally they are not just waiting for the three run homer. The coaching staff is changing the attitude of this team and it is working.

Wag of the Finger- Aaron Rowand for being completely lost at the plate tonight especially when El Duque was pitching. I am not convinced he should be brought back next season. I think maybe Michael Bourn and Shane Victorino should split time.

Tomorrow's Game- Jon Lieber lugs his excess girth and 6+ ERA to the mound to face Tom Glavine at 1:20 on Fox. Glavine is 11-4 with a 3.97 ERA. Lieber was ripped last Sunday lasting only 4 2/3 innings. Chase looks to get back on track and Howard will look to hit his 38th home run. The Phillies will look to make up some ground in the wild card race.

Sunday's Game- Scott Mathieson will make his second start since being recalled. He faces John Maine has pitched 33 innings and has an ERA of 2.45 this year. This game is on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. The Phillies will be on national TV in back to back games so hopefully they leave a good impression.

I will be gone for the rest of the weekend and will probably not have access to a computer so there will be no updates until Sunday evening.