{"id":703,"date":"2009-05-31T16:56:15","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T21:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=703"},"modified":"2009-05-31T16:56:15","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T21:56:15","slug":"ryan-howards-slams-the-phills-past-the-nats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/?p=703","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Howards SLAMS the Phills past the Nats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Howard set a Philadelphia Phillies record with his eighth career grand slam\u2014and did it in emphatic fashion.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Howard\u2019s slam traveled 475 feet and became only the second ball to reach the third deck in right field. He also added a solo homer to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to a 9-6 victory over the Washington Nationals on Saturday night.<\/em>
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\n<\/em>Trailing 3-2 in the third, Howard connected on his slam to move past Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt. Howard had given the Phillies their first run with a solo shot in the second inning. It was the 19th multihomer game of Howard\u2019s career.<\/em>
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\n<\/em>\u201cYeah, it definitely felt good,\u201d Howard said of his grand slam. \u201cI knew it was high enough to go out. When everything comes together, you never know how far it\u2019s going to go. I got it pretty square.\u201d<\/em>
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\n<\/em>Howard also hit the only other homer to reach the third deck in the ballpark\u2019s five-year history off the Yankees\u2019 Mike Mussina on June 20, 2006.<\/em>
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\n<\/em>\u201cHe\u2019s just as strong as anyone,\u201d Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said, when asked to compare Howard to the all-time sluggers. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him hit some long ones.\u201d<\/em>
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Cole Hamels (3-2) gave up six runs and eight hits in six innings for the win. He struck out seven in his worst start this season since allowing seven against Colorado to open the season.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>\u201cI pitched pretty bad and made a lot of mistakes,\u201d Hamels said. \u201cThey\u2019re a good hitting team and you can\u2019t make mistakes and can\u2019t take them lightly.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Hamels was appreciative of the run support and spoke glowingly of Howard.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>\u201cOur offense is very potent and when they\u2019re able to get big hits and score runs it really does help, especially when I\u2019m not able to hold my own,\u201d he said.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>On Howard, Hamels said, \u201cIt\u2019s impressive how strong he is. He\u2019s the power.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless ninth for his 11th save.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Shairon Martis (5-1) lost for the first time in 10 starts for Washington. He surrendered seven runs and seven hits in four innings. Howard has plagued Martis in his career hitting three homers and driving in nine runs in seven at-bats.<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino also had a pair of hits for the Phillies, who improved to 9-2 against the Nationals this season while dealing Washington its fifth straight loss.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s tough losing so much, but we\u2019re not going to quit,\u201d Nationals manager Manny Acta said. \u201cWe\u2019ll come back tomorrow and play hard.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Washington got a run back in the fourth on Alberto Gonzalez\u2019s RBI triple that scored Austin Kearns to pull within 6-4, but Hamels delivered an RBI double to restore Philadelphia\u2019s three-run lead.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>Pinch-hitter Ronnie Belliard hit a two-run homer to left in the sixth to pull Washington to 7-6. But Philadelphia tacked on a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning when Anderson Hernandez booted Howard\u2019s grounder to second with the bases loaded.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>The Nationals took a 3-0 lead in the second with three hits, as Will Nieves drove in two with a double and Hernandez one with a single.<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\n<\/em>\u201cWe\u2019re just very inconsistent and that\u2019s why our record is what it is,\u201d said Washington right fielder Adam Dunn, who made two errors to give him seven for the season. -yahoo.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Fightin Phills looking pretty good. \u00a0Again Lidge came on and got the save. \u00a0Pretty good homestand we have kicking so far. \u00a0And how about Ryan Howard, wow man o man that guy is a BEAST. \u00a0Did you see both of those home-runs? \u00a0I mean if you didn’t your a moron their all over ESPN and CSN but still, holy crap buddy. \u00a0Nice job Ryan you pretty much alone won that game for us. \u00a0Crappy seeing Cole struggling again though, almost as if he’s starting to get a tad bit LAZY behind that mound. \u00a0Don’t expect it to come to you like last year Cole, we still gotta earn it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Howard set a Philadelphia Phillies record with his eighth career grand slam\u2014and did it in emphatic fashion. Howard\u2019s slam traveled 475 feet and became only the… <\/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-703","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\/703","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=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.homeboyznetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}