Phillies Blasted Again by Dodgers Power
By Matt Veasey
The Philadelphia Phillies dropped a second straight at home to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night.
The Phillies were overpowered by the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers, who blasted three homers after drilling four home runs the previous night in taking a 7-2 decision at Citizens Bank Park.
Victimized this time around was rookie pitcher Jake Thompson, who allowed five earned runs on five hits over five innings, striking out four and walking four.
Thompson (1-2) threw just 55 strikes in his 103 total pitches. It marked a franchise record eighth consecutive game in which the Phillies starting pitcher failed to reach the 6th inning.
Four Dodgers’ starters produced multiple hit efforts, but this time around the Phillies completely shut down former star 2nd baseman Chase Utley. ‘The Man’ took an 0-5 collar this time out, striking out twice, after his huge game on Tuesday night.
Adrian Gonzalez and Justin Turner each homered off Thompson, and Gonzalez added a second shot off Phillies reliever Edubray Ramos.
All of the Dodgers offense again came after the Phillies had scored first. In the bottom of the 2nd inning, Freddy Galvis doubled to score Maikel Franco for the early 1-0 lead.
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Thompson got through the first three innings clean, and took that 1-0 lead into the top of the 4th inning. But Turner led off that 4th with a single, Josh Reddick drew a walk, and then Gonzalez ripped his 11th home run of the season out deep to right-center field, the three-run shot putting LA on top 3-1.
“Just kind of lost the feel for working down in the zone and both sides of the plate,” Thompson said per MLB.com contributors. “That’s not a good problem to have against those guys.”
Cesar Hernandez went 2-4 out of the leadoff spot for the Fightin’ Phils, continuing a hot stretch that dates back almost a month.
Cesar has reached base safely in each of his last 23 games, batting .348 with a .464 OBP over that stretch. pic.twitter.com/w6RhXtfQCg
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) August 18, 2016
The Dodgers have now pushed past the ice-cold division rival San Francisco Giants in the NL West standings. LA now holds a 1.5 game lead, two games in the loss column.
The Phillies dropped to nine games below the .500 mark, 8.5 games out of the final NL Wildcard playoff spot. Some wild postseason talk from the beginning of the week has now completely left the thought process of even the most optimistic Phils fan.