Philly Sports Today

Two things were bound to happen sooner or later. First, the Washington Nationals were bound to win their first game of the season, and second, Joe Blanton was bound to lose his first game as a Phillie. Unfortunately, both of these events happened during the same game as the the Nats abused relievers Chad “You may be able to start calling me J.D.” Durbin and Jack “Trashner” Taschner in the seventh and eighth innings during their 8-2 win. To put in perspective how poorly those two guys pitched, the Phillies only trailed 3-2 when Durbin took the mound.

In what seems to be an every game occurrence, the Phillies allowed first inning runs when starting pitcher “Fat” Joe Blanton served up a three-run home run that Adam Dunn absolutely crushed into the right field seats. The Phightins got one back from Washington starting pitcher Shairon Martis in the fourth inning when Raul Ibanez’s RBI-single plated Chase Utley. The Phils clawed to within one run in the fifth inning on a Jimmy Rollins sac fly that scored rookie Lou Marson.

However, Philly couldn’t get anything else off of Martis, who threw 6 1/3 strong innings and allowed two runs on five hits with one strikeout and two walks. Blanton didn’t do so bad either. During Fat Joe’s six inning of work, he allowed three runs and scattered eight hits while striking out five and walking one. So besides the Dunn jack, Blanton had a pretty good night. Then, the Phils completely unraveled. Durbin started the seventh in relief of Blanton and got a rude welcome by pinch hitter Josh Willingham, who greeted him with a solo homer to left that pushed Washington’s lead to 4-2. Taschner came on in relief of Durbin to record the final out of the inning, but it was only a matter of time before he would get abused.

If J.C. Romero isn’t suspended, does the eighth inning play out the way it did? The obvious answer is no. Elijah Dukes led off the inning with a home run. Then, Trashner picked up two outs and it looked like he was going to be able to get out of the inning after only allowing one run. Not so fast, my friend. Alberto Gonzalez hit a solo home run to left. Roger Bernadina walked, stole second, and scored on Anderson Hernandez’s single. After Nick Johnson walked, Ryan Zimmerman singled to center to plate Hernandez and suddenly that Nats had a 8-2 lead. Joel Hanrahan came on in relief in the ninth and had an easy 1-2-3 inning as the Nationals cruised to their first victory of 2009.

The Phillies’ pitching has been absolutely dreadful this season. In 70 innings, the staff has allowed 54 earned runs (6.94 ERA). Additionally, they’ve now served up 20 home runs. Only the Baltimore Orioles have allowed more homers (21), but at least they’re hitting .290 as a team with 56 runs scored, while the Phillies are only hitting .261 with 42 runs scored. The Phightins right the ship as soon as possible since their schedule gets a lot tougher once the calendar flips to May.

The Phillies return home tonight to begin a three-game series with the surprising San Diego Padres, who just won two of three from the Mets during the first series at Citi Field. Cole Hamels will make his second start of the year in the series opener and will be opposed by Chris Young. Hopefully, Cole has a much better performance than he did in his first outing of the year when he threw about as hard as Jamie Moyer.

Go Phillies.