The Nationals played a double-header against the Phillies yesterday. The pitching match-ups were and Tom Milone – Kyle Kendrick (not exactly one of the NL East champ’s aces) and Ross Detwiler – Cliff Lee (he’s pretty good). Off these four pitchers, three did not give up a run. Those three were Tom Milone, Ross Detwiler, and Kyle Kendrick.
In game one, Milone and Kendrick traded six very similar innings; both allowed 4 hits and didn’t walk a batter – Milone K’ed 2 and Kendrick K’ed 4. Doug Slaten relieved Milone and gave up 2 runs without getting an out, with Raul Ibanez subsequently taking his replacement – Tyler Clippard – deep. Michael Schwimer relieved Kendrick and allowed 3 runs on a Roger Bernadina homer to bring things back to even. So to extras they went, where Ryan Zimmerman’s 10th inning RBI single off of Michael Stutes put the Nationals in the win column.
A split looked like a fair bet with Lee on the mound in game two, and if you knew the score ended up being 3-0 I imagine that is what would have been expected. Ross Detwiler shut the Phillies down though, with 7.1 IP of scoreless ball (3 H, 1 BB, 3 K). Henry Rodriguez and Drew Storen pitched 1.2 perfect innings – striking out 3 of the 4 batters they faced – to finish things off. On the other side, Cliff Lee got battered for 3 runs (2 earned) on 11 hits in 7 innings (though he didn’t walk a batter, and K’ed 9). Danny Espinosa – who homered off of him twice in his last start against the Nat’s – went yard once again. That tied Espinosa for the second most homers by a particular batter against Lee in his career (Paul Konerko had 6, but Espinosa will have a few years to get there). Lee even gave up an RBI single to the opposing hurler, giving Detwiler more runs driven in than allowed by himself, Milone, and Kendrick in 19.1 IP on the day.
Dropping the two games makes it four losses in a row for the Phillies – only the third time this year that’s happened. If John Lannan can the Nationals doing an impersonation of the Phillies rotation and beat Vance Worley tonight, that’ll have Philadelphia losing five straight for the first time. At the very least, Washington has put a 106 win ceiling on the Phils this year.
Also last night: A 6 run bottom of the 7th gave the Card’s the comeback win against the Mets to leave them to within 2.5 games of Atlanta; Eric Hosmer picked up 5 hits – including a home run – as the Royals beat the Tigers 10-2; Jonathan Papelbon blew the save against the Orioles, keeping the Red Sox from extending their Wild Card lead; and much more.
What to watch tonight: The Rays and Yankees play two, with James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson taking on Phil Hughes and CC Sabathia; Derek Lowe tries to keep the Braves lead in the Wild Card race, facing the recently very good Javier Vazquez and the Marlins; and O’s continue to attempt to play spoiler versus Josh Becket and the Red Sox. Full schedule with probable pitchers here.
