Omar Infante Homers Twice…Seriously, He Hit Two Home Runs

By its nature the “recap” is supposed to occur directly after an athletic contest to recapture what happened in the game.  I took a day to write this one.  There are some concerns with the Phillies this year; namely their offense and all members of the bullpen not named Papelbon.  Concerns aside it is widely accepted that they will still win the division.  This being said, it is still difficult to watch as things that everyone thought would go wrong start to go wrong.  Four games do not a season make, but it is frustrating as hell to watch Laynce Nix and Jimmy Rollins strike out with less than two outs and a man on third as average starting pitching shuts the team down.

Rationally I know that the team will hit more than they have been thus far, but again, this has been pretty difficult to watch and even more difficult to write about, hence the day off.

With all the consternation surrounding the offense, it is always reassuring to have the longest tenured member of the pitching staff lying to wait, ready to deliver a knockout blow to the upstart team with the crazy manager.  Cole Hamels looked dominant at times, as evidenced by his nine strikeouts.  He also looked like he was struggling, as evidenced by the eight hits and four runs allowed over just above five innings of work.  Personally, I would have liked Hamels to drill Jose Reyes in the back, but there is going to be more time to quench my thirst for vengeance.  All in all Hamels was average and the way the offense is currently going, average is not going to cut it.

Anibal Sanchez pretty much shut the Phillies down.  He is not terrible, but the Phillies made him look like Tom Seaver.  The only runs they could scratch across the board came on Freddy Galvis’s first major league hit.  The Marlin bullpen stopped the rally after the Galvis double although I supposed we can all take some solace in the fact that the Phils didn’t get shut out.

Omar Infante had two home runs in the game.  With two home runs he has outhomered the entire Phillies roster for the season.  Even Papelbon (who was in the game for God knows what reason) allowed a homer to Austin Kearns.  6-2 loss for the Phillies.

If Anibal Sanchez looked like a Cy Young contender, what is Josh Johnson going to look like?  We find out tomorrow.  Halladay versus Johnson.