{"id":574,"date":"2009-05-16T09:20:57","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T14:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2009-05-16T09:35:21","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T14:35:21","slug":"why-do-the-nats-always-play-so-good-against-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"Why do the Nats always play so good against us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both bullpens blew late leads, so the Phillies and Nationals kept shuttling pitchers in and out as their game dragged on and on Friday night.Eventually, Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel decided to give up on his relief corps and turn to a pitcher who was scheduled to start during Saturday\u2019s day-night doubleheader.\u201cOnce we got there in the game, and I looked at their team and our team, and compared what players were left, what pitchers,\u201d Manuel explained, \u201cI said \u2026 \u2018We\u2019re going for it.\u201d\u2019So J.A. Happ(notes) came on for the 11th to throw two scoreless innings, and Raul Ibanez(notes) delivered a two-run single after Kip Wells(notes), Washington\u2019s eighth pitcher, walked the bases loaded in the 12th. That broke a tie and sent the Phillies to a 10-6 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo excuses. No explanations,\u201d Nationals manager Manny Acta said. \u201cWe just basically walked ourselves into death.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a long day for most of the Phillies, who visited the White House in the morning. Ibanez skipped that trip, and wound up with four hits.
\n\u201cThese guys are probably more tired than I am,\u201d Ibanez said about his teammates. \u201cThey had to get up early.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philadelphia tacked on insurance runs with Pedro Feliz\u2019s(notes) RBI double\u2014also his fourth hit\u2014and catcher Wil Nieves\u2019(notes) throwing error on a double steal.<\/p>\n

Wells (0-1), Washington\u2019s last available reliever, allowed four run in two innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpinning my wheels,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know you\u2019re the last guy, and they\u2019re not going to put (cleanup hitter) Adam Dunn(notes) in there to try to get out of a jam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Happ (2-0), Philadelphia\u2019s seventh pitcher, ended the game at 11:37 p.m., 4 1\/2 hours after the first pitch, by getting pinch-hitter Josh Bard(notes)\u2014Washington\u2019s last bench player, the 21st man used by Acta\u2014to fly out.<\/p>\n

After Friday\u2019s 11th inning, a little past 11 p.m., the Nationals told the crowd that the planned postgame fireworks display would not take place because of the late hour. Saturday\u2019s first pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.<\/p>\n

With Happ unavailable, Philadelphia will bring up Andrew Carpenter(notes) from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to start the second game, which is supposed to begin at 7:05 p.m.
\nMuch earlier, before Friday\u2019s first pitch, Manuel bemoaned what he called his players\u2019 lack of focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor about a week now,\u201d he said, \u201cwe haven\u2019t played good baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Phillies had lost six of their previous eight games to fall to .500 for the season, and they trailed 4-1 Friday. But Feliz and Carlos Ruiz(notes) hit RBI singles in the sixth, and Ryan Howard(notes) hit his seventh homer of the season, a three-run shot, in the next inning off Joe Beimel(notes) to make it 6-4.<\/p>\n

The last-place Nationals have blown 11 of 17 save opportunities, and Beimel acknowledged: \u201cWe can\u2019t get any worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Phillies closer Brad Lidge(notes) gave up Willie Harris\u2019(notes) tying two-run double with two out in the ninth. It was Lidge\u2019s second blown save over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been, for me, a rough sequence recently of not throwing my best,\u201d Lidge said.<\/p>\n

Saturday could be rough for both teams.<\/p>\n

Asked how tough the turnaround would be, Dunn said with a smirk: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

After pausing for effect, he added: \u201cWhen I\u2019m in the fetal position somewhere.\u201d -yahoo.com<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

It was not pretty at all and our runs as well as their runs came in clusters. \u00a0But at least somehow we got it done. \u00a0The bottom half of our line-up was amazing which usually is not the case. \u00a0Pedro, I’ve been saying it all year, hes going to have an amazing year and I think hes just warming up. At least I hope so. \u00a0Lets take both games of the double header today and move up even further in this division! \u00a0We need to regain dominance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both bullpens blew late leads, so the Phillies and Nationals kept shuttling pitchers in and out as their game dragged on and on Friday night.Eventually, Philadelphia manager… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philadelphia_phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}