Phillies Recap: September 9, 2009

Philadelphia Phillies 6, Washington Nationals 5

W - Lee (6-2), L - Clippard (2-2), S - Madson (6)

For the third straight start, Cliff Lee was not sharp. However, he showed some grit and kept the Phillies in the ball game. The Nationals, behind a decent start from Garrett Mock, proved to be a formidable opponent again. The two NL East foes played a good game that went back and forth, down to the wire. The Phillies once again prevailed in a close game by a 6-5 margin.

Cliff Lee did not have his best command. But the eager bats of the Nationals helped keep his pitch count down. Nonetheless, they tagged him for five runs, stringing together some hard hit balls on several occasions. On the night, Lee went seven plus innings, allowing five earned runs. He gave up seven hits, but no walks, and fanned four. Lee has not been nearly as dominant as he was in his first five starts, and needs to regain the lights-out stuff he had early on as a Phillie.

The Nationals pitched well, as the Phillies offense was against somewhat stagnant. Even though Garrett Mock gave up a three-run second inning, he settled in and kept the Phils relatively quiet. They had several opportunities to bust the game open, but a lack of clutch hitting yet again befell the Phillies. However, in the eighth inning the Phillies pounded back-to-back solo shots by Jayson Werth and Pedro Feliz, which provided the winning margin.

This was another grind-it-out win for the Phillies. While the close games against a poor team are not awe-inspiring, they are adding a dimension of mental toughness. For the past few weeks, the Phillies have not shown a lot of spark, so hopefully these difficult wins will lead to better things in the future. Even with the ugly win, the Phillies do drop their magic number to 19 and improve to 79-58 on the year.