Nights like tonight serve to remind us what Kyle Kendrick is: The Phillies' sixth, emergency starter, pressed into duty due to injury.
After rolling through the first three innings, retiring the Reds' first 10 batters in order, Kendrick allowed three extra base hits in a row, culminating in a two run home run from Philadelphia's ex-girlfriend and NL MVP candidate Scott Rolen. From there, the Reds just piled on, taking advantage of some sloppy play from the Phillies and generally battering around the Phillies' lesser pitchers.
Kendrick's final line -- six and a third innings, five earned runs, eight hits -- well, that's just not so good.
Although they had Reds' starter Johnny Cueto on the ropes for most of the first few innings, the Phillies were not able to capitalize. Chase Utley had an uncharacteristically sloppy game, in which he was thrown out at second trying to stretch a single into a double, and committed an error on a ball hit by Cueto that led directly to a run. Cueto went eight full innings allowing just a single run, despite failing to strike out a single batter. To their credit, the Reds fielders made a number of outstanding plays, including a (technical) double play off the bat of Raul Ibanez in the second inning, where Brandon Phillips made an incredible behind-the-back shovel toss to the pivot man Orlando Cabrera.
The Phillies tacked two runs on in the top of the ninth, on Raul Ibanez's sixth home run of the season.
Oh well.
