Manship to Hollands to Camp - Dodgers 5, Phillies 2

These are the saddest of possible words, Manship to Hollands to Camp.
Trio of pitchers and weaker than birds, Manship to Hollands to Camp.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, 
turning a sure out in to a double, 
words that are heavy with nothing but trouble, Manship to Hollands to Camp.

With apologies to Franklin Adams. 

Cole Hamels return to baseball tonight was spoiled by the Dodgers and the Phillies bullpen and the Phillies manager. Hamels was decent for his own part, pitching six solid innings, scattering six hits and a walk, allowing two runs, and five strikeouts--including his first of the year against Dodger lead-off man Yasiel Puig.

Now, normally, two runs in six innings should be enough for your offense to have a fighting chance. Also normally, the Phillies' offense was somewhat abnormal, combining for five hits of LA's Zack Greinke. Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley hit doubles; and Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels hit singles.

The fifth hit came from late-inning offensive replacement Jayson Nix, of course.

Nix's eighth inning homerun chased Greinke, but LA relievers J.P. Howell and Kenley Jansen were more than good enough for the "suddenly" struggling Phils' bats.

After Hamels' six, Ryne Sandberg turned the one-run game over to the bullpen, and naturally went to ace setup man, Jeff Manship. Because... reasons. Manship was good for two thirds of an inning, allowing a two-out double to pitcher Greinke and an RBI triple with extra batflipsauce to Puig. Ace lefty Mario Hollands then came on to close out the seventh.

After the Nix homerun, then, now in a 3-2 game, Sadberg elected to stick with Hollands, who allowed a leadoff homerun to Hanley Ramirez and a one-out double to Scott Van Slyke. Madberg went to his next bullpen ace, Shawn Camp, who promptly allowed an RBI single to Justin Turner.

The Phillies' bullpen now has an MLB-worst 5.64 ERA, Manship to Hollands to Camp.

Fangraph of Pricked Gonfalon Bubble:

Source: FanGraphs

With the loss, the Phils drop to 10-11, one game under .500. Honestly, if you said we could be sitting at 10-11 after a series against Texas, Milwaukee, Atlanta and LA, I'd take that as opposed to some other, easily plausible outcomes. Things are bad. They're not that bad.

Game four of this four game left coast series is tomorrow evening, at probably midnight or something. Timezones and shit. Goodnight yinz.