GAME
RECAP: Phillies Stun Indians 4-3
If you blinked, you might have missed it. After 10 1/2
innings of play and nearly 3 1/2 hours, Ryan Howard ended Friday night's game at Citizens
Bank Park on one pitch. The veteran first baseman lined a 3-2 pitch from Cody Allen over the right-field wall to give the
Phillies a 4-3, 11-inning win over the Indians. "It felt good,"
Howard said. "I put the fat part of the bat on the ball, and the rest took
care of itself." At only two points were the Indians and Phillies anything
but tied. The two clubs matched zeros for the first four innings of play,
before they each scored three runs in the fifth. But while Adam Morgan
unraveled the third time through the Cleveland order and exited after allowing
three runs, Corey Kluber bounced back from his three-run fifth
to retire the final six Phillies he faced. Only two of the runs Kluber allowed
in the fifth were earned. Both teams' bullpens put forth impressive efforts,
combining to allow only one run, but the Phillies' outlasted the Indians'.
Philadelphia's 'pen struck out 11 over six scoreless frames. The Indians'
relievers matched their opponent's impressive efforts through their first
three, but Howard put the winning run over the wall to lead off the 11th
inning. "When you're on the road, you're always kind of playing with
fire," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "Because they get to hit
last." It was the Phillies' fourth straight win and seventh in their last
eight games. At 13-10, they're three games above .500 for the first time since
Sept. 21, 2012. "It's a lot of fun. This is the most excited I've seen
these guys in two years with the team," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin
said.
PHILS PHACTS:
- It looked as
though the Phillies were going to get a run in 10th. Facing Jeff
Manship, Philadelphia loaded the bases with one out.
But Francona went to his closer, Allen, with the circumstances dire. Allen
struck out Freddy Galvis to end the Phillies' rally before
getting Maikel
Franco to
ground out to end the frame. "Cody came in and did such a good job to
get out of that and give us another chance," Francona said. The next
batter he faced -- Howard, the next inning -- ended the game, though. "He
caught too much of the plate to Howard," Francona continued.
"That's not the first time [Howard] has done that."
- Morgan was
cruising in his first Major League start of the season and had sat down
nine straight when Kluber came up with two outs in the fifth. After
Kluber's double and Davis' following RBI single, Jason Kipnis lifted a 1-2 Morgan offering over
the right-field wall to make it a three-run inning. Morgan struck out the
next batter, Francisco Lindor,
his seventh strikeout on the last batter he faced. "It was a slider
that wasn't low enough," Morgan said of the pitch Kipnis hit over the
fence.
- Phillies pitchers combined for 18 strikeouts on Friday night,
setting a new season high. Eleven of those punchouts came from their
bullpen, which threw six scoreless innings in relief of Morgan, who
notched a career-best seven strikeouts. The Phillies now have 240
strikeouts on the season, the most in the Majors.
- When Davis drove Kluber home from second in the fifth inning, it
snapped the Phillies' 26-inning scoreless streak. The last time
Philadelphia had a streak that long was Sept. 13-16, 2009. The Phillies
own two of the three longest scoreless streaks of the 2016 season: the
aforementioned 26 innings and a 19-inning run from April 11-13. The
Dodgers' 31-inning streak to begin the season leads baseball.
NEXT
GAME:
Jerad Eickhoff will start for the Phillies on Saturday in the second game of their
Interleague series with Cleveland. Eickhoff has a 4.07 ERA through four starts
this season, but his last start saw him give up seven runs in 5 1/3 innings
against the Brewers. Eickhoff is hoping to look more like the pitcher he was in
his first three games, during which he had a 1.89 ERA.
PHILS PHACTS:
What Year Is This? – Ryan
Howard hit
a walk-off home run as the Phillies continued their winning ways on Friday
night. It felt like the good old days at Citizens Bank Park. Howard, the
longest-tenured member of a young Phillies roster, was reminiscent of his
former MVP self in a 4-3,
11-inning win over the Indians, the Phillies' seventh victory in their last
eight and their fourth straight overall. He went 3-for-5 with a double and a
line-drive homer off Cleveland closer Cody
Allen. "I think you savor it at any moment in your
career, whether you're a rookie, whether you're a veteran, and those are always
great situations to be in and come through for your team," Howard said. And
this current team is playing better than any team Howard -- in his 13th Major
League season -- has been on in the last few seasons. At 13-10, the Phillies
are three games over the .500 mark for the first time since Sept. 21, 2012,
when they were 77-74. Only Howard, Carlos
Ruiz, Freddy
Galvis and Darin
Ruf remain
from that roster. "I'm having a blast. The team itself is having a good
time," Howard said. "… There's a different energy, and you could feel
that at the end in Spring Training. And the way everything's been going, it's
great." Friday's three-hit performance was also Howard's best showing so
far in the 2016 season. In what was just his second multi-hit game of the year,
Howard cranked his fifth home run and first double. He upped his average from
.185 to .214, and that double was the first hit in what turned into a three-run
fifth inning. "He hasn't been swinging the bat very well, and he got a
couple hits earlier in the game," Phillies manager Pete Makanin said of
Howard. "Any time you hit a walk-off home run, it's exciting for
everybody, and I'd like to see Howard do it another 25 times -- not necessarily
a walk-off." Ruiz, who is next behind Howard in terms of service time in
Philadelphia, drove Howard in with a double in the fifth. Ruiz is now hitting
.297 this season, and though the Phillies' season will be mostly about their
younger talent, their veterans are showing they can still make a difference.
Morgan Bolsters K Total – Phillies
manager Pete Mackanin said before Friday's game that Adam Morgan was not
guaranteed a spot in the starting rotation moving forward. For the first 14
outs of his start, Morgan looked like a pitcher deserving of it in the
Phillies' 4-3, 11-inning win. Morgan,
a 26-year-old lefty, cruised through the first 4 2/3 innings of his first Major
League start of the season, even retiring nine consecutive batters before
Indians pitcher Corey Kluber stepped in to the batter's box with
two outs in the fifth. What looked to likely be an innocent end to the inning
turned into trouble. Kluber -- in just his 15th Major League at-bat -- hit a
double down the left-field line and scored the game's first run when leadoff
man Rajai Davis singled him home. Jason Kipnis followed
that up with a home run, hitting a 1-2 slider from Morgan over the right-field
fence to give Cleveland a 3-0 lead. Morgan's night ended on a sour note, but
the pitcher was picked up. First by the Phillies offense, then by their bullpen.
Philadelphia got Morgan off the hook with three runs in the bottom of the fifth
and then a group of four relievers put together six scoreless innings, setting
up Ryan Howard's
walk-off home run in the 11th. "The energy is high and everyone is picking
each other up, the way the bullpen did for me and those guys came out in the
fifth inning and scored runs," said Morgan, who made 15 starts for the
Phillies last season. Morgan was called up to replace Charlie Morton, the
veteran sinkerballer who was recently lost for the season with a left hamstring
injury. It looked like the southpaw did enough to earn himself another shot in
the Phillies rotation, striking out a career-best seven batters over five
innings. "I realized the mistakes that I made, and I can go forward from
there," he said. Meanwhile, the Phillies' bullpen turned in another solid
performance. Andrew Bailey, Elvis Araujo, Hector Neris and David Hernandez allowed just one hit and struck out 11
in six innings. Bailey and Hernandez each had four punchouts, while Neris had
the other three. Phillies pitchers lead the Majors with 240 strikeouts on the
season. The 18 strikeouts by the Phillies were the most they've had as a team
since May 30, 2014, against the Mets, a game that went 14 innings. Morgan also
helped the Phillies pitching staff run its scoreless streak to 26 innings, the
franchise's longest since Sept. 13-16, 2009. While the streak was snapped in
the fifth, the bullpen got another one underway in a hurry. "We were
confident that the guys we had were capable pitchers, and we felt they were
capable of doing what they're doing," Mackanin said. "To see them
doing what we thought they were capable of doing is a good feeling. We have
guys in the Minors that we're excited about, also, but these guys out here, are
we leading the league in strikeouts? It's outstanding."
Today
In Phils History – In addition to some unique names appearing on
Phillies lineup cards on this day including Spud Davis (1928) and Delmon Young
(2013) as well as some nice additions made to the team when they traded for
Pinky Whitney in 1936 and acquired Andy Seminick and Jim Greengrass (for a
package that included Smoky Burgess) in 1955, there have been some unique games
in the history of the franchise on this day. The first of such games came in
1887 when the Phillies beat New York in the first game at what would later be
known as the Baker Bowl. In 1919, the Phillies played Brooklyn to 9-9 tie in 20
innings after each team scored three runs in the 19th. In 1961
manager Gene Mauch, in an unusual move, used a team record 5 pinch hitters in the
8th inning to score 7 runs. The Phillies would go on to beat St.
Louis in 10 innings. A year later, in 1962, the Phillies finally defeated
Warren Spahn ending an 11 game losing streak against the Milwaukee ace that
dated back to May of 1959.
THE BEGINNING:
The Phillies
are currently 13-10 this season putting them on pace to beat most preseason
predictions. The Phillies finished the spring exceeding most expectations
compiling a record of 15-11-3 (18-11-3 if you include the exhibition games
against Reading and the University of Tampa). All time, the Phillies are
41-49-3 on this day. I expect the Phillies to finish in the bottom half of the
division but not last in the NL East by finishing the season with a 77-85
record. Let the rebuild begin!
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