Naked Punch: Phillies 10, Cardinals 9

The Phillies have seemed to have a way of not hitting for what feels like weeks at a time, and then their bats will put it together on a night the starting pitching stinks. Tonight was one of those nights. Also, a grown man ran onto the field in the nude, and that's fun stuff.

Cardinals starter Jake Westbrook got dinked and dunked for four runs in the first inning, which is hard to believe but it'll happen. The Phillies would add two more in the second to take an insurmountable lead...

The lead was never "surmounted" but it was most definitely "mounted." The Cardinals would score four in the third, and three in the fifth, including a game-tying two run home run to deep center by the loathsome Yadier Molina.

The Phillies answered quickly in the top of the sixth, scoring two runs on RBI singles from Freddy Galvis and pinch-hitter Mike Fontenot to take a 9-7 lead. The Cards would score again in the bottom of the seventh, and the Phillies would score their 10th run in the eighth on a solo blast from Ty Wigginton. Antonio Bastardo worked a scary eighth inning, allowing a Cardinal run but finally striking out Carlos Beltran with two runners on base for the final out of the inning.

Jonathan Papelbon allowed a single hit in the ninth but no runs to register his 13th "Save."

Four Phillies -- Galvis, Carlos Ruiz, Ty Wigginton, and Placido Polanco -- collected three hits apiece, with new papa Jimmy Rollins collecting two base knocks of his own. Phillies starter Joe Blanton allowed seven runs in 4.1 innings, pheeeeeewww.

An exciting game, but the bad kind of "kill you dead" excitement.

GameGraph below.

Source: FanGraphs