GAME
RECAP: Phils Filet Fish 3-1
Phillies right-hander Vince Velasquez set the tone, working out of a
first-inning jam, and struck out 10 in five shutout innings. The bullpen kept
the K's coming, Phillies pitchers racking up 17 in a 3-1 win over the Marlins
on Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park. Tommy Joseph, who picked up his first big league
hit on Monday, homered for the first time in his career in a 3-for-4 night. The
drive off the foul pole in left in the second inning was the first of three
runs (two earned) allowed by Miami lefty Wei-Yin Chen in
six innings. The Marlins had their three-game win streak snapped. "Tonight
was all about Tommy Joseph and the bullpen," Phillies manager Pete
Mackanin said. "It was nice to see Tommy get his first home run. He made
that great play to end the game. Not much more you can ask for from him." The
17 strikeouts by the Phillies is the most since the club fanned 18 on May 6,
2011, against the Braves, which also is a franchise mark for a nine-inning
game. For Miami, the 17 times striking out matches a team high for nine
innings, with the last coming on April 10, 2014, at Washington. Miami had
runners on second and third with no outs in the first against Velasquez. But
the right-hander worked out of it, and he also stranded runners at the corners
in the third. Miami did manage to raise his pitch count, and after 103 pitches
and five innings, the Phillies were into their bullpen. "To win a game
when your starter throws over 100 pitches in five innings is really a
bonus," Mackanin said. With the win, the Phils moved a half-game behind
the Nationals for first place in the National League East. Miami's Marcell Ozuna had
his 16-game hit streak snapped. "[Velasquez] gets off the hook in the
first there, we get him in trouble," Marlins manager Don Mattingly said.
"He's got 75 through three innings. We did a nice job of battling him.
He's got good stuff. It seems like from there, we didn't really put anything
together until there at the end." Miami loaded the bases in the ninth
against Jeanmar Gomez, who allowed a Derek Dietrch
sacrifice fly, but got Martin Prado to
ground out to Joseph to seal the win and earn his 15th save.
PHILS PHACTS:
- If getting
his first Major League hit and home run on back-to-back nights wasn't
enough, Joseph piled on, collecting two more hits in addition to his long
ball and driving home two of the Phillies' three runs. Tuesday marked the
first time Joseph batted cleanup, and Mackanin's decision paid off. It was
just the third time in 40 games this season that a Phillies No. 4 hitter
recorded three hits. Spanning 202 games since the start of 2015, it was
just the 10th such occurrence. "I didn't expect that," Joseph
said of being penciled in the No. 4 hole. "To hit cleanup for this
team, who's playing really well right now, it's pretty awesome."
- Velasquez didn't
retire the Marlins 1-2-3 in an inning until the fourth, when he was
already at 91 pitches. He allowed the first two to reach base in the first
inning, but a strikeout paired with smart play from Freddy Galvis at short prevented any damage. In
the third, Miami again had a runner at third base, but Velasquez got Justin Bour to
whiff on a curveball to end the threat. Velasquez dodged trouble all
night, but the 103 pitches it took him to do so prevented him from going
any deeper. It was his fourth start this season in which he's allowed zero
runs on three hits or fewer, but he's only reached the seventh inning
once. "Velasquez, he was just spraying the ball all over the
place," Mackanin said.
- Ichiro Suzuki is inching closer toward 3,000 hits. The 42-year-old, called upon
to pinch-hit in the seventh inning for Chen, swatted an opposite-field
single to left. The flare fell just out of the reach of a sprinting
Galvis. It was career hit No. 2,949 for Ichiro, now 51 away from 3,000.
The pinch-hit also had significance because it gave Miami two runners on
and one out in a three-run game.
- Velasquez is used to posting big strikeout numbers. He fanned 16
Padres in a win on April 14. In the third inning, Velasquez achieved a
rarity when he struck out Prado, who had gone 59 at-bats between striking
out.
- The Marlins picked an opportune time to challenge a close play at
third base. Joseph was on third in the sixth inning, and with the Phillies
up by three, Miami asked for a replay review on catcher Jeff Mathis' pickoff attempt of Joseph, who dove back into the base as Prado
applied the tag. The Marlins challenged the safe call, and after a review
of one minute and 33 seconds, the ruling was the call on the field stands.
NEXT
GAME:
Jeremy Hellickson (3-2, 4.12) takes the ball for the Phils
in Wednesday's series finale. Philadelphia will be looking to secure its fourth
straight series victory and seventh in its last eight. Hellickson was
phenomenal his last time out, going seven innings and only surrendering two
unearned runs to the Reds in a 3-2 win.
PHILS PHACTS:
Rookie Cleans Up – Less
than 24 hours after receiving a standing ovation while standing on first base
after his first big league hit, Tommy Joseph stepped
on the bag again -- but didn't stay there very long. Joseph's second-inning
solo homer bounced off the left-field foul pole, and the 24-year-old first
baseman trotted around the Citizens Bank Park basepaths for the first time. The
home run would be almost all the Phillies needed in a 3-1 victory over the
Marlins on Tuesday night, but Joseph didn't stop there. He singled to right in
the fourth and to center in the sixth, where Marcell Ozuna misplayed the ball and let Joseph
get to third and Cesar Hernandez to score the Phillies' third and final
run. By the time Jeanmar Gomez recorded
the final out, when Joseph made a diving stop at first base, he was 3-for-4. "Tonight
was all about Tommy Joseph and the bullpen," manager Pete Mackanin said.
"It was nice to see Tommy get his first home run. He made that great play
to end the game. Not much more you can ask for from him." Not since 2009
has a Phillies player homered in a multihit effort within his first three Major
League games. It's been done 11 times in franchise history, but the last to do
so was John Mayberry Jr., going 2-for-3 against the Yankees on May 23, 2009. Joseph's
big night gets even larger when put into context. Mackanin threw him into the
cleanup hole because, "Why not?" he joked pregame. But Joseph gave
his manager a better answer going forward. "I didn't expect that,"
Joseph said of seeing his name in the No. 4 slot on the lineup card. "To
hit cleanup for this team, which is playing pretty well right now, it's pretty
awesome." Only three times this season has a Phillies No. 4 hitter
recorded three hits in a game -- Joseph joining Maikel Franco, who had three singles against the
Padres on April 11, and Ryan Howard, who enjoyed a 3-for-5 night against
the Indians on April 29. In 202 games since the start of 2015, it's now only
been done 10 times. Despite the big game, Mackanin said the plan is to stick to
the platoon at first base with Howard. Joseph, however, likely won't get pulled
against righty relievers like Darin Ruf did. The rookie can hit right-handers,
but it's important to Mackanin to keep Howard in the lineup, too. "I might
mix in Joseph against a couple of right-handers here and there," Mackanin
said. "But Howie's still a big a part of the team. We all know what he's
capable of doing. It's nice to see Joseph add some offense to the team, but
we'll just play it a day at a time." The Marlins' Wei-Yin Chen is
the last lefty starter the Phillies will face for the foreseeable future, but
Joseph will get his chances against righties when the Phils head to Detroit a
series from now, where he and Howard will share first base and designated
hitter duties.
Continues To Show Promise – Opportunity
came early for the Marlins on Tuesday night, when they put runners on second
and third with no outs in the first inning against hard-throwing Phillies
right-hander Vince Velasquez. But
as quickly as the chance to break through came, it went away. Velasquez pitched
out of the jam, and Miami was scrambling to simply make contact the rest of the
way in a 3-1 loss to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
"It's one of those times," manager Don Mattingly said. "You
never know what changes the game, or where the momentum slips away. He gets off
the hook there. It would have been nice to put a couple up." The big
inning, and the big hit, eluded the Marlins throughout. They ended up striking
out 17 times, which matched the franchise record for most K's in a nine-inning
game. It's been done four times now, with the last being on April 10, 2014, at
Washington. Velasquez, who had his pitch count run up, fanned 10 in five
innings. "To win a game when your starter throws over 100 pitches in five
innings is really a bonus," Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. The
Marlins avoided being shut out for the first time this year, pushing a run
across in the ninth inning on Derek Dietrich's sacrifice fly. In the first
inning, Dietrich singled to open the game. He went to third on Martin Prado's double to left. The inning quickly
turned after that. Christian Yelich stung a sharp grounder to short. Even
though the Phillies were playing their middle infielders deep, conceding a run
on a grounder, Dietrich held at third. "We're definitely going on
contact," Mattingly said. "The one thing that ball does is it comes
off the bat, not on the ground. It comes off on that low one-hopper at short,
so it's a little tweener read. Obviously, we want to be moving on that ball,
but Deet kind of froze there." Giancarlo Stanton struck out and the inning ended on Justin Bour's pop foul to third. "We've got
to score there," Yelich said. "That's something you've got to take
advantage of early off the bat, and we didn't. It came back and cost us." The
Marlins stranded 10 and went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. It was
the second straight game in which the club wasn't able to break through for a
big inning. In Monday's 5-3 win, the Marlins left 12 on base and went 2-for-10
with runners in scoring position. "After the first three [innings], we
didn't really seem to have the same type of at-bats," Mattingly said.
Goeddel Capitalizing – Pete
Mackanin had exhausted all his options to extract any bit of offensive
production from his corner outfield spots. Cedric Hunter had been optioned to
Triple-A. Darin Ruf followed a few weeks later. So why not put some faith into
the player taken No. 1 in this year's Rule 5 Draft? Since May 4, Tyler Goeddel has
started all but two games in left field. And the vote of confidence from the
Phillies manager is paying off. Goeddel entered Tuesday with a four-game
hitting streak and has hit safely in six of the past seven games. While serving
a limited role to start the season, Goeddel was hitting .160 (4-for-25) with
nothing more than a single. He sat for three straight games leading up to May
4. The 23-year-old outfielder has raised his batting average 80 points since
the calendar turned, hitting .303 to bring his season average up to .241. "To
get regular playing time and confidence is huge," Goeddel said. "Coming
to the field every day to see myself in the lineup, it's a feeling I didn't
have last month. It's a lot more relaxing, less stressful." The month of
April marked the first time Goeddel had spent any time above Double-A in his
professional career. Playing sporadically only made the transition more
difficult. "I'm sure after his season was over, he never thought he'd be
in the big leagues this year," Mackanin said. "It's not easy to make
the adjustment. It's a little overwhelming. I think that's what happened to
him." Now that Goeddel is seeing pitchers for a second time, he's able to
make adjustments -- just as they're doing to him. Goeddel found that he was
late on the majority of fastballs he faced. So he began starting his leg kick
earlier. He's also working on eliminating wrapping his hands as he starts his
swing to get his bat into the zone faster. Prior to May 4, Goeddel whiffed on
26 percent of the fastballs he saw. He's swung and missed on only 6 percent of
fastballs since then, putting 32 percent of them in play, compared to just 9
percent during the first month of the season. "You need to hit the
fastball if you're going to play up here, and I feel I've made that
adjustment," Goeddel said. It will be a year of adjustments for Goeddel.
He faces the same challenge as every other young player: The more film opposing
pitchers get, the better they can adjust to the hitter. It's a battle for who
can stay ahead of the other, and Goeddel has the upper hand for now. Mackanin
said he even considered moving Goeddel up to the second slot in the Phillies'
batting order. On a team that's scored four or more runs just twice in its last
20 games, Mackanin will ride the hot hand as long as he can.
Today In Phils
History – During a double header in
1929, during which Chuck Klein hit homeruns in each game, the Phillies and
Dodgers combine to score 50 runs and split the twin billing. 35 years later, in
1964, Jim Bunning threw a 1 hitter against Houston… Don Hoak was released that
same day. In 2000, Mark McGwire victimized the Phillies once again going deep 3
times (the second time he had done so as a visitor) ending the game with 539
homeruns, 8th all time, after passing Mickey Mantle at 536. 5 year
later, Bobby Abreu hit a homerun extending his team record streak of
consecutive games with an extra base hit to 11. He was only 1 of four players
in the history of the game to do so and the first since 1920. The homerun also
tied a franchise record giving Abreu an RBI in 10 straight games.
THE BEGINNING:
The
Phillies are currently 23-17 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 45-57-0 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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