Phillies Get Tantalizingly Close to Sweep; Then Don’t, 4-3

Say what you will about getting beat 14-2, but you never think you’re gonna win it.

A game where you tie it up in the bottom of the ninth, you like to think you’ve got the best of the momentum.  But then you remember how easy it is to lose a baseball game when the other team is the home team.

When you reach a point, all the other team has to do is score a run and they get the W.  You score a run, still you have to claw your way out of a three-out hole.  And what the’s trade off for this sick joke, especially with our bullpen’s inconsistency?  We get to bat first?  Yeah, that helped.  Thanks, baseball.

May 8, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants left fielder Gregor Blanco (7) steals second base past Philadelphia Phillies infielder Chase Utley (26) during the fifth inning at AT

That inconsistent bullpen today was Antonio Bastardo, who is not inconsistent, even after today.  It’s the inconsistency in a game where Chad Durbin, the incredible misfortunes of Jeremy Horst, and Phillippe Aumont don’t allow the winning run and Bastardo does that I’m talking about.

Regardless, we can be proud of the Phillies.  So many games, already, when a late inning comeback seemed like a mirage from an alternate timeline in which this team is effective after dark.

J-Roll’s double seemed a tease; Michael Young’s walk seemed to build on inevitable inadequacies somewhere in the scoring process.  But then Chase Utley singled a banger up the middle, scoring Rollins, and even better, putting himself and Young on second and third respectively, because they are both incredibly intelligent base runners.

Delmon Young – fresh off the unveiling of his arm-cannon at two different points today – stepped in and, with the knowledge that he had to do was get the ball out of the infield, hammered a sac fly to right, scoring M. Young.  That left it to Chooch, who flew out to left.

May 8, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey (28) scores the game winning run on a single by San Francisco Giants center fielder Andres Torres (56, not pictured) during the tenth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at AT

Mike Adams got in and out and in and out of trouble in the bottom of the ninth, and the Phillies got Ben Revere to first before the inning crumbled into dust as he was caught stealing second (according to incorrect umpire-thoughts) and Dom Brown struck out swinging a pitch later.

Then Bastardo came on and allowed a single to Buster Posey, who was just entering the game, a sac bunt, and a walk.  That’s pretty much how the Giants define “offense” so that’s what they needed to score on an Andres Torres single one batter later.

Jonathan Pettibone pitched solidly for the Phillies, allowing three runs in 5.2, with seven hits and walking four.  But Barry Zito, on the Giants’ end, continued to get applause from a crowd who despised him just moments ago, scattering only four hits through seven innings and keeping that ERA at a healthy 2.75.  He allowed a solo shot to Kevin Frandsen, which at that point tied the game at one.

When it all went wrong

God damn, they just couldn’t get the right out.  I’ll push it all the way to Posey’s single.  Lead off runner on in an inning in which all they had to do was score to win the game.  No, let’s push it to his steal of third on the wild pitch.  That was it.  That was the final nail.

Hero

Chase Utley – timely hitting is what makes a team worth losing to.

Villain

Buster Posey – but it’s also what prevents a loss.

TBOH’s thoughts