GAME
RECAP: Phillies Fluster Cardinals 1-0
Aaron
Nola extended
his scoreless innings streak to 20 and Ryan
Howard backed him with his sixth home run to boost the
Phillies to a 1-0 victory over the Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Tuesday. One
night after the Cardinals blasted five home runs, Nola held the club to two
hits over seven innings. In doing so, he lowered his season WHIP to 0.80, the
third-lowest mark among National League starters. "He can paint the
fastball on both sides of the plate, keep hitters guessing one side or the
other," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "You can't sit on one
side of the plate because he's so good at locating both sides of the plate and
he's got a real good breaking ball that he threw extremely well today." Cardinals
starter Michael
Wacha was
nearly as good, but paid for a sixth-inning mistake to Howard. The St. Louis
native clobbered Wacha's cutter to collect his sixth home run of the season and
12th home run in 36 career games at Busch Stadium. Wacha held the Phillies
hitless after the homer en route to finishing a season-high eight innings. "[He]
just put a good swing on it," Wacha said of the cutter he threw to Howard.
"He doesn't miss those. I have to locate those better. I know if I execute
that pitch and get to where I want, it might be a groundout or a take. But I
just didn't execute it."
PHILS PHACTS:
- Howard continued to burn his hometown team with a 411-foot
home run over the right field bullpen in the sixth. It was Howard's 22nd
career home run against the Cardinals. Howard's average of a home run
every 10.9 at-bats is the highest home run rate for any batter in Major
League history against the Cardinals with a minimum of 150 at-bats. "I
was just looking for something up in the zone," Howard said. "He
(Wacha) does a great job keeping the ball down, putting it where he wants
to put it. He just kind of left that one middle and tried to take
advantage of it."
- The right-hander continued his string of dominant
performances. Nola struck out seven, four of which were looking, over
seven innings of two-hit ball. In his past three outings, Nola has given
up one run and struck out 21 over 21 innings. He currently has a 20-inning
shutout streak. "Kind of mixing my pitches in well," Nola said.
"Try to mix my change-up in more. I didn't do it too too much
tonight, but when I did, I felt like I used it efficiently. Just trying to
command the ball down in the zone and try to command it in and out and
up."
- Having watched Peter
Bourjos patrol
the outfield for them the past two seasons, the Cardinals were not all
that surprised to see the Phillies right fielder make a terrific catch
along the right-field line to potentially save a run. Yadier
Molina was
off from first when Randal
Grichuk made
contact and likely would have tested Bourjos' arm if the ball had gotten
past him and kicked off the wall. "Shocking," Grichuk said of
the catch. "He tracks down balls that you don't think are going to be
caught. Off the bat, I thought it was going to be able to sneak in there,
but he made a great play."
- "Yadi's a lot faster than people think man. He's a very smart
smart baseball player, period. I think he scores if Pete doesn't catch
that ball." -- Howard on whether Bourjos' sliding catch
in the fourth prevented Molina from scoring from first base.
- Hector Neris struck out all three Cardinals he
faced in a perfect eighth inning and Jeanmar Gomez struck out another while picking
up his ninth save of the season. The Phillies, who entered the game third
in the majors in strikeouts, now have 98 through the team's first 27
games. "Neris has an invisible pitch that nobody can see and Gomez,
what can you say?" Mackanin said. "Gomez has been impeccable so
far."
- Molina was awarded an infield single after a fourth-inning replay
review overturned an initial out call. Molina was awarded the two-out hit
after a one-minute, 14-second review showed he beat out a throw from third
baseman Maikel Franco.
NEXT
GAME:
Lefty Adam Morgan (0-0, 5.40 ERA) will make his second
start of the season in the third of a four-game series against the Cardinals on
Wednesday at 8:15 p.m. EST. Morgan made his major league debut against the
Cardinals last season, allowing one run in 5 2/3 innings in a 9-2 victory on
June 21.
PHILS PHACTS:
Nola Continues Dominance – Phillies starter Aaron Nola continued his dominance Tuesday night.
The right-hander bested Cardinals starter Michael Wacha in an old fashioned pitchers' duel in
the Phillies 1-0 victory at Busch Stadium. Nola pitched seven
shutout innings, gave up two hits and struck out seven, four of which were
looking. The Cardinals couldn't get a runner past first after Nola pitched
around a Matt Carpenter leadoff double in the first. "He
can paint the fastball on both sides of the plate, keep hitters guessing one
side or the other," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. "You can't
sit on one side of the plate because he's so good at locating both sides of the
plate and he's got a real good breaking ball that he threw extremely well
today." Nola threw 76 of his 111 pitches for strikes. In his past three
outings, Nola (2-2) has given up one run and struck out 21 over 21 innings. He
currently has a 20-inning scoreless streak. "Try to mix my changeup in
more," Nola said. "I didn't do it too too much tonight, but when I
did, I felt like I used it efficiently. Just trying to command the ball down in
the zone and try to command it in and out and up." The 22-year-old
overshadowed eight strong innings from Wacha (2-2), whose only mistake was a
home run off the bat of Ryan Howard. "He
has good run on his fastball and then the curveball comes out of the same slot,
the same kind of funky delivery," Wacha said of Nola. "It's a good one.
He gets a lot of movement on the fastball and then throws the slider, curveball
and gets it down in the zone. Credit to that guy, he was on his game
tonight." Peter Bourjos aided Nola's cause with a sliding
catch to rob Randal Grichuk of a sure RBI double in the fourth.
Grichuk's drive was tailing away from Bourjos. Had the ball gotten down, it
would have gone into the right field corner and would have scored Yadier Molina, who
reached on a two-out infield single after a successful review by Cardinals
manager Mike Matheny. "He's helped us win four of five games with his
defense and speed," Mackanin said of Bourjos. "That's the thing we
talked about over the winter about getting better coverage in the outfield.
He's really added to our outfield coverage." Nola thanked Bourjos
afterward. "Pete covered a lot of ground on that," Nola said.
"That's what Pete does. He's fast. He's quick. He's a great player." Hector Neris struck
out all three batters he faced in the eighth and Jeanmar Gomez picked up his ninth save. The Phillies
have now won seven of their last eight. The win broke a four-game losing streak
against the Cardinals. "The key to a good team is bouncing back,"
Mackanin said. "We bounced back from an 0-4 start and it was important for
us as a team to bounce back from getting beat pretty bad last night."
Welcome Home Howard – Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard definitely feels at home in St. Louis.
Howard, who grew up in suburban St. Louis, has made a career of beating his
hometown team. He added to the list on Tuesday. Howard drove the first pitch he
saw from Michael Wacha in the sixth inning 411-feet over the
right field bullpen in the Phillies' 1-0 win over the
Cardinals. "I was just looking for something up in the zone," Howard
said. "He [Wacha] does a great job keeping the ball down, putting it where
he wants to put it. He just kind of left that one middle and tried to take
advantage of it." It was career home run No. 22 for Howard against the
Cardinals. Howard's average of a home run every 10.9 at-bats is the highest
home run rate for any Major League player with a minimum of 150 at-bats ever
against St. Louis. "It's always good to be able to come home and
play," Howard said. "This is home. This is where it all began for me.
I think it's just something different when you get to play against the team you
grew up watching." Howard is a career .336 (81-for-241) batter against the
Cardinals with 66 RBIs. Most of the damage has come at Busch Stadium, where
Howard is hitting .331 (44-for-133) with 12 home runs and 40 RBIs in 36 games. "For
some reason certain guys hit well in certain ballparks," Phillies manager
Pete Mackanin said. "And you can count on Howie to hit the ball well
here." It was the second time the Phillies have won 1-0 this season on a
Howard home run. His homer against the Mets on April 9 was also the only run in
that game.
Locating Results – Location, not high velocity, is everything to the
Phillies' bullpen. Without any traditional flamethrowers who can routinely
throw in the high 90's, Phillies' relievers are showing that the strikeouts
don't have to pile up while topping the radar gun. Entering Tuesday's game
against the Cardinals, Phillies relievers had 94 strikeouts, third most in the
big leagues behind Boston (96) and Minnesota (95). "It's nice to have a
big arm, but those guys still have to throw quality strikes," Phillies
manager Pete Mackanin said. "If you throw 97, it's great if you throw it here
or here or elevate it, but if it's thigh-high two or three in row, Major
Leaguers can hit it." Reliever Andrew Bailey gives a lot of credit to pitching
coach Bob McClure and bullpen coach Rick Kranitz for developing detailed
scouting reports. "We don't throw over 100 miles per hour and none of us
really throw over 95," Bailey said. "For us, it's knowing the
scouting reports, knowing how to make balls appear in the zone and finishing
out of the zone to get swings-and-misses. Obviously, location's very important
no matter what velocity you throw at." Roster decisions on the make-up of
a fluid bullpen situation out of Spring Training hinged on command. "[Luis]
Garcia didn't make team out of Spring Training and he's got a big arm, because
of the command of his pitches," Mackanin said. "And Bailey didn't
make the team either because he didn't show command. That's more important,
command, control and movement. [Jeanmar] Gomez has been successful as a closer
to this point because he's making quality pitches consistently." Strong
leadership by catchers Cameron Rupp and Carlos Ruiz have been instrumental, too. "Cameron
Rupp and Chooch have a great idea of what they're doing every single inning,
every single batter," Bailey said. "They know how to use each
pitcher's repertoire to have success."
New Swing, Better Results – A new swing has helped Phillies catcher Cameron Rupp build off of a strong finish to the
2015 season. Rupp slugged eight home runs in his final 38 games last season
after having just one long ball in his first 65 games in the big leagues. Still,
the 27-year-old saw room for improvement and worked on a change in his swing
path in the offseason. "I did alter it, working more down towards the
ball," Rupp said. "I do believe that it has helped with some of the
success we've had this year early on." Rupp had a seven-game hitting
streak snapped against Cleveland on Saturday. He has hit safely in 11 of his 14
games and five of his last six hits have been doubles. Rupp is hitting .263,
which is 30 points above his career average, with one home run and four RBIs
this season. "I think he's got a better chance to hit," Phillies
manager Pete Mackanin said. "How far that's going to go we'll find out.
But he looks better than last year." Mackanin gives Rupp credit for
sticking with the new approach. "Their flaws are always pointed out on a
daily basis and at some point they've got to carry it over to the game,"
Mackanin said. "They can do it in batting practice, but it's difficult to
carry it into the game." Mackanin compared it to taking golf lessons.
Hitters in both sports can be taught the proper techniques in practice, but as
soon as a few bad swings or shots take place, the natural inclination is to
revert back to what feels comfortable. Rupp is determined to not look back. "A
lot of balls I've had for hits this year I don't think would have translated
into hits last year," Rupp said. "Maybe a couple of routine fly balls
on the doubles I hit, even the home run I hit wasn't handled very well last
year. So I think it has kind of given me more success this year and early on it
shows."
Today
In Phils History – An interesting game to start the history of the day
is in 1919 when future Hall of Famer Dave Bancroft is carried off the field
during the first legal Sunday home game for the Giants… the Phillies later
traded him to the Giants. A decade later, the Phillies set a modern record for
most runs allowed in a shutout when the Cubs crushed them, 16-0. In 1964, Jack
Baldschum and Bob Gibson had it out when Baldschum hit Gibson with a pitch and
Gibson return the favor by throwing his bat at Baldschum. Denny Doyle concluded
the longest home game in Phillies history when he tripled and scored the
winning run on a sac fly in the 20th inning in 1973. Two years later,
the Phillies traded for Garry Maddox who would prove to be a big piece of the
championship team 5 years later. 15 years ago today, Barry Bonds hit his only
homerun at the Vet, going deep off of Bruce Chen, during his record 73 homerun
season. And, finally, happy 40th birthday Jason Michaels!
THE BEGINNING:
The Phillies
are currently 16-11 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 43-51-0
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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