Hamels Shines In Werth's Return

All of last year and even in some games this year, the Phils have struggled to provide run support for Cole Hamels. And after the first 2 innings last night, it looked like Cole was in for another game with little Phillies offense.

The first 8 Phillies batters went down in order and Cole came to the plate with 2 outs in the bottom of third. Cole decided to to try and get some runs for himself and laced a triple off the wall in right. Rollins then singled to score Hamels and give the Phils a 1-0 lead. In the fifth Placido Polanco hit a sacrifice fly to score Rollins and put the Phils up 2-0.

With the lead it seemed like Hamels pitched a lot better. Hamels allowed base runners but did a good job of getting ground outs to get out of jams. Hamels had his change up working and struck out 6. The only run that Hamels allowed came off a Mike Morse solo home run in the top of the 7th. But the Phils offense responded in the bottom of the inning and provided 2 insurance runs for Hamels off of RBI hits from Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez.

With the 3 run lead Hamels went the distance and pitched a scoreless 8th and 9th to give the Phils a 4-1 victory. It was good for the Phillies to get a win last night especially in the opening game of the series. In addition to the Phils victory there were some interesting story lines from last night's game. Raul Ibanez had 2 hits breaking an 0-35 slump. And in the top of the first the Phillies faithful at Citizens Bank Park gave Jayson Werth a warm welcome. Personally I was indifferent and didn't cheer or boo for Werth.

Tonight at 7:05 the Phils will send Vance Worley to the mound who will look to build on his successful last start.