Now, who needs bullpen help? The Mets led 2-1 headed into the eighth, but the Braves led 5-2 headed into the bottom of the inning. The victims were old friend Mike Stanton and the reanimated corpse of Ricky Bottalico. Chipper opened with a single, then Julio doubled him home to tie the game. The Braves loaded the bases on walks (one intentional) then LaRoche pinch-hit a sac fly to give the Braves the lead, then back-to-back singles by Furcal and Giles each drove in a run. Reitsma, who suddenly seems to have found himself, needed eleven pitches in the eighth, and Smoltz the same in the ninth. John Thomson got the win, pitching seven pretty good innings. He did walk five and allowed seven hits, but struck out four. He got in big trouble in the first, loading the bases with none out, but got out of it.
Every Braves starter, including Thomson, had a hit, but all but Furcal had exactly one hit. Weird. They also had eight walks, Giles with two. All in all, they probably should have scored more than five runs. Al Leiter gave up just the one run, but could go only five innings and needed 117 pitches to get that far.
The Phillies also won, so the Braves stay a half game in front. The Marlins are 3 1/2 out and the Mets 4 out… The final game of the series tomorrow is Trachsel and Hampton.
It’s pretty bad when they have to use Franco. He must know which closet the skeletons are located. He has an ERA of 13.50 and rising since the 1st of July, and I know why. He’s 43 Years old.
Yeah, but our Franco is two years older, and he had the RBI double to tie it up!
Reitsma has an ERA of well over 8 against Philly, about 3 against everybody else. Now, maybe they just happen to catch him at his worts; maybe they just have his number *shrug*
Last night’s was an excruciating game to watch. Slow as the dickens, lots of deep counts. So today we get Trachsel and Hampton – well _that_ should speed things up! :-p
Say goodbye to the Marlins. They are now 5 back. They were 10 games over .500 at one time, but have tanked. Injuries have hurt, but they didn’t hit in June. I bet they’re kicking themselves for not re-signing Pudge. Detroit has already won more games this year than all of last year.
It goes to show how far leadership can take a team.
It’s 37, isn’t it Colin? Everyone’s got his number… 🙂
I’m less concerned with one man’s occasional inability to get a couple of outs than with the Phillies inability to lose consistently. Generally, no matter how badly certain members of a team performance against them, a first-place caliber team isn’t there by accident. I’ll give the credit to the Phillies rather than Reitsma, for now.