Phillies Recap: August 21, 2009

New York Mets 4, Philadelphia Phillies 2

Cole Hamels once again struggled and the Phillies bats could not do much against the Mets' Mike Pelfrey. After waiting out a lengthy rain delay, the two teams played a game that was not as close as the score indicated. Despite two Met ejections, New York pulled out an entertaining 4-2 win over the Phillies.

Hamels (7-8) suffered from another high pitch count early on, and had difficulty putting away Mets hitters. The result was a two-run second and two-run third inning for the lefty. The bright side to Hamels' performance was that it could have been much worse, but he shut down the Mets when it mattered. In the second inning, Gary Sheffield struck out with the bases loaded. Hamels also stranded runners in most of his five innings of work, as we gave up four earned runs and struck out six.

Mike Pelfrey (9-8) pitched just well enough to win the ballgame. He wasn't especially sharp but neither were Phillies hitters, who managed a number of base runners against Pelfrey, but could not manage to find the clutch hit. As usual, just about all of the Phillies hit, but without home runs, they had trouble scoring. Ryan Howard did have an RBI single, giving him 99 on the season, but struck out to end the ball game, with the tying runs on base.

Overall, this was a tough loss for a Phillies team that was rolling high. The effort from Cole Hamels must have the team worried, but for now, they should have the pitching depth they need. They need a bounce-back effort tonight to avoid dropping more than one game to the hapless Mets.