Phillies Recap: August 2, 2009

San Francisco Giants 7, Philadelphia Phillies 3

Neither Cole Hamels nor Barry Zito was nearly as sharp as their teammates from last night's game. However, while Chip Caray practiced his over-reactive inflection points, both starters battled hard and kept their teams close early. The Phillies utlimately lost a tough get-away game to the Giants by a final score of 7-3.

Hamels (7-6) fell victim to some early misfortune, as the Giants dinked and dunked hits on him. In the bottom of the second, former Phillie Aaron Rowand opened the scoring with a run-scoring triple with no one out. Hamels bounced back though and limited the damage by stranding Rowand at third. After cruising through the next couple of innings, Hamels found two-out trouble when Zito blooped a broken bat single that led to a three-run outburst. Hamels ran into another jam in the sixth inning which ended his afternoon, as he was tagged for six runs over five plus innings. Chan Ho Park, who allowed two of Hamels' runners to score, Ryan Madson, and Scott Eyre threw an inning each in relief.

Barry Zito (7-10) started out much stronger, facing the minimum through three frames. In the fourth, Jimmy Rollins tied the game with his 11th homer of the season, a no-doubt-about-it shot to left. The Phils then scratched out another unearned run. They added another run in the fifth as Carlos Ruiz came through and proved my theory right. But, as the game progressed, impatient at-bats by the Phillies hitters led to five strikeouts in six innings by Zito. He was lifted for a pinch hitter in the sixth, and he was propelled to his seventh win of the season. The Phillies' only other major threat came in the eighth inning when they had two aboard for Utley and Howard, but lefty Jeremy Affeldt escaped unharmed.

The Phillies lose a series for the first time since they were swept by the Braves to start July and finish the road trip 3-4. It was not the start the Phillies or Hamels wanted, as they stumble home for an off day, before taking on the Rockies. The Phillies are now 59-44 on the season. They are currently 5.5 games ahead of the Marlins, who were still in play when the game ended.