Phillies Squish Nats

    The Phillies topped the Nats and made tomfoolery of their "Natitude" tonight as they won 3-2. As is typical, the Phillies didn't score many runs, but with the help of some shutdown pitching, before the closer entered the game, they were able to pull out another division win.

The one clawed "Rally Crawfish" approves of this win. Read on!

    John "Despicable Me" Lannan was having his way on the mound against his former team, shutting them out for eight innings while allowing only four hits. Jonathan Papelbon came on and closed things out after Lannan's dominate outing, but not before raising every fans blood pressure. After a single and a double to put men on second and third with no outs, Papelbon gave up a deep fly ball to center field against Jayson Werth to put the Nats on the board. Papelbon surrendered another sacrifice fly to pull the Nats within a run before finally closing things down and sealing the win for the Phillies
    The Phillies offense did collect ten hits on the evening, but as usual was horrendous with runners in scoring position, going only 2 for 11, while leaving ten men stranded in the game. Dom Brown singled home a run in the first and Darin Ruf, who will be filling in for the foreseeable future while Ryan Howard is out with his injury drew a bases loaded walk to drive in another run in the first. Jimmy Rollins singled to drive in Ben Revere in the sixth to tack on an insurance run and give Revere his second run scored in the game. Revere continues to heat up offensively after a sluggish April, and after a 3 for 5 night at the plate tonight is hitting .300 for the season.
    Side note, David Wright picked only one person in the top nine in the National League in home runs for the home run derby, choosing instead to go with Bryce Harper and his friend Michael Cuddyer. I'm not as angry that Dom Brown isn't in the derby as I am that many other deserving people weren't picked so that Wright could hang with his friend. But, oh well, maybe that logic behind picking players is why the Mets are always terrible.
    The Phillies now head into game two of this series tomorrow against the Nationals. Cole Hamels will make the start for the good guys.