It figures my rare recap would come down to this. The game on the line, bases loaded and two outs in the 9th and the guy the Phillies shouldn't have traded vs. the guy the Phillies shouldn't have signed. Papelbon pitched 2 Innings on Tuesday, he has some trade value (less now that the Tigers acquired Soria), so obviously, feel free to overuse the guy. By the time Pence came to the plate Papelbon had already thrown almost as many pitches as he had on Tuesday. His control was off, as he started the inning by hitting the immobile Michael Morse, then intentionally walking Crawford and unintentionally walking Sanchez. He almost walked Pence, pushing the count to 3-2, before Pence, after fouling one off, blooped a single the opposite way. He was able to advance to Second when the throw went toward home and to Third when the throw went well past home. This never looked good, even when Papelbon K'd Duvall and the swing at anything Tyler Colvin before the Crawford walk.
It's a shame the first 8 innings were an odd, sloppy gem. Both Offenses unable to hit the Starters, rain delaying action and Hunter Pence making the 8th interesting when he inadvertently slid into Left on a Steal of Second, That forced a Marx Brothers routine where he tried to make it to Third weirdly slowly while Rollins fought the ball, before Pence took a weird, we'll call it a slide and got tagged out by a guy I forgot we had on the roster.
In the 9th Rollins with one out in the Phillies half cracked a line drive that looked about 5-6 feet short of being a Home Run. He ended up with a standing Double. He scored on a seeing eye grounder up the middle by Byrd, but Ruiz flew out to Center, ending the game.
I'm not going to get into the Pence or Papelbon stuff again, but the bad decisions were strongly highlighted in that lone At-Bat. Fangraph of Trade Everyone:
Source: FanGraphs