Phillies Send Home Fans to Bed Early Again
By Matt Veasey
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | |
| Phillies | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Dodgers | 0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | x | 9 |
The Philadelphia Phillies suffered a second straight big defeat at the hands of the host Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night at Chavez Ravine.
For a second straight night, fans of the Phillies hoping to stay up a little late and watch their favorite team take on former favored son Chase Utley and the LA Dodgers on television were put to sleep early.
Fresh off a 9-4 beat down in the Monday night series opener, the host Los Angeles Dodgers crushed the visiting Phils again, this time by a score of 9-3 on Tuesday night.
This time around it was young Phillies starting pitcher Vincent Velasquez who suffered the beating. The 24-year old Velasquez (8-4) was ripped for nine earned runs and 11 hits over just 4.1 innings. In that barrage were seven extra-base hits, including three home runs.
“The whole mentality going into today’s game was just attacking the hitters,” Velasquez said per MLB.com contributors. “And then it just went south from [the first inning].”
Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda wasn’t great, but he was good enough to hold up the early lead provided by his hot offense. Maeda (11-7) went five frames, yielding three earned runs on six hits.
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The home side did all of their damage early on in this one, scoring all nine runs between the 2nd and 5th frames, the first four runs coming in a 2nd inning outburst. Five different LA batters produced a multi-hit night, including Utley.
Maikel Franco and Freddy Galvis each had a pair of hits for the Phillies, with the latter blasting his 10th home run of the season, a solo shot off Maeda in the top of the 4th inning.
Aaron Altherr also chipped in with his own 4th homer of the year with a man on in the top of the 2nd to briefly give the Phillies the lead at 2-0.
With the loss, the Phils have fallen to 11 games below the .500 mark on the year. They have not been a dozen games under that break even point since June 27th, and will need to win the series finale on Wednesday afternoon to avoid sinking to that level.