Phils Avoid Sweep, Drub Mets 8-2

There was a time when the Phillies could erase a early deficit by socking a bunch of dingers and demoralizing the other team’s pitcher.  The lead off guy hit thirty homers one year for Christ’s sake.  This year, there will be a lot of Juan Pierre.  No one is scared.  One run leads seem to be insurmountable and the offense has been rendered listless by the like of Eric Bedard and R.A. Dickey.

After Cole Hamels surrendered a first inning home run to Ike Davis, it looked like the offense was going to fail miserably in producing anything against Mike Pelfrey.  Pelfrey is terrible.  He allowed ten base-runners in his six innings of work and was constantly forced to work out of trouble.  The surprising part about today’s game was that Pelfrey actually did work out of trouble.  We are used to Pelfrey melting down and getting the living hell pounded out of him.

Today, Pelfrey gave up one earned run.  The Phillies couldn’t buy an extra base hit as all of their eight hits off of Pelfrey were singles.

Poor Cole Hamels.  He gave up two runs in the first inning and looked extremely sharp thereafter.  Even with his quasi dominant start, there was a very real possibility that Cole would start the season 0-2.  The Phillies made a winner out of Cole by scoring seven runs off of the Met bullpen.  Ty Wigginton even hit a double with the bases loaded, padding his stats and putting the game well out of reach.

Chad Qualls pitched a scoreless eighth and Jonathan Papelbon loaded the bases in the ninth, but escaped without damage.  Imagine the panic that would emanate from a sweep from the Mets.

Next the Phillies take on the closerless San Fransisco Giants.  Halladay and Timmy face off in the series opener.  Get ready to stay up late.