Brotherly Love/Hate

The Phillies were in town for a four game series against the Padres this past weekend. Unfortunately, the Padres were swept as their offense just could not get going against some great Phillies pitching.

The love part of having the Phillies in town is the amount of fans they travel with....bring that east coast money to San Diego! The hate part is dealing with their obnoxiousness. Several fans across the four games were seriously annoying and seemed in the mood to start a fight. Good thing Padres fans are so chill. For the most part, the loudmouths were ignored. The Phillies fans are also very big into bringing signs and dancing around with them throughout the whole game. Whatev.


Thursday
Fielding error by Latos allows Polanco to reach base. Latos ended up striking out Howard and Ibanez to end the inning. Phew.

One run would be all that it would take to beat the Padres. Ben Francisco scored that run on a home run in the second inning. That is what I call a Ben Francisco treat.

The Padres pitching was great again, giving up only seven hits and three runs. Howard struck out four times. Give the man a golden sombrero!

Friday

Another shut-out. This time Clayton Richard pitched 7.1 innings giving up just six hits and two runs. He has some good stuff...if only he could get some run support! No sombrero for Howard in this game. He legged out a triple in the third inning. 

Saturday
Padres score two runs! The game started off promising with a Maybin single followed by a RBI triple from Bartlett. The game went to extra innings. In the top of the 11th, with a runner on third, Qualls intentionally walked Jimmy Rollins to get to Ryan Howard with two outs. It may sound crazy, but Howard had already earned himself a second golden sombrero of the series.

This was either going to be a disaster or a miracle. Verdict - disaster. Howard doubled to score two. Padres couldn't get any in the bottom of the 11th to keep the game going.

Sunday
Good Padres pitching performance again, this time by the recently called up Wade LeBlanc. A diving attempt by Venable turned a double into an inside-the-park home run by Victorino. Ludwick did the great circle route on another fly ball, allowing two more runs to score. That is all Halladay would need as he K'd 14 in eight-plus innings.

Glad to see the Phils and their pitching leave town.