Harang Ten: Phillies 10 - Braves 5

It's a long standing tale that certain names result from one's ancestors occupation, Miller because your ancestor ran a mill, Shoemaker, because, well that one's pretty obvious, etc. (I've often wondered what Cormicaning would involve). Perhaps Aaron Harang was being karmically punished today for the harangues his ancestors threw at people. Perhaps his ancestors were the receivers of harangues and Aaron just has bad luck today. Either way, Aaron Harang was the victim of a lengthy offensive attack this afternoon.

It started to look bad early for Harang who gave up 2 quick runs in the First. This is as good a place as any to note I like hitting Hernandez leadoff. He gets on base and has good speed. I'm less enamored with hitting your backup Ctcher in the 2-hole, but when you score 10 runs, it's hard to complain. Besides, both got on, Cesar stole a base and with Marlon Byrd up the Phillies had the bases loaded and only one out. Byrd singled in Cesar and Harang walked in Nieves. 2-0 end of First.

Roberto Hernandez Started well getting quick outs from La Stella and Pena (as it was apparently lead off with your bench day). Hernandez then walked Freeman and Gattis murdered a ball to Left. Tie game. Now I still get the shakes when games are close, I have a bad history with recaps here. The Braves score 2 more in the First on a Ryan Doumit Single before Harang Grounded out.

Harang then cruised through the first 2 outs in the Second, before falling apart. Double to Nieves, Single by Utley, Double that hit the bottom of the wall in Right Center by Howard, Single by Byrd, Double by Brown, Single by Mayberry and, mercifully for Harang, a long flyout by Brignac to end the Inning. Phillies though were up 7-4 at that point.

The teams traded runs in the 4th, as Harang was awful and just struggling, meanwhile Doumit led off the bottom half with a ball that ended up in the first row in Right Field, directly to the 3 fans sitting in that part of the stadium. Hernandez didn't make it look easy after that as he gave up a solid double to Schaffer and a sac bunt to advance him to t3rd by Harang. Hernandez then dug deep and struck out the "top" of the order for the Braves (his only 2 K's of the game).

After all the extra inning games and short starts, with a taxed bullpen, the Braves left Harang in there to take a beating longer than they may have normally and he left down 8-5. The Phillies went on to tack on a run on a Homer by Byrd to start the 8th, but it was virtually a done deal by that point. Ken Giles pitched 2, relatively uneventful innings to wrap it up, Striking out 3 and Walking 1. Nieves left late in the game, no word on injury yet, and I lost my MLB TV signal, so I missed seeing what happened.

It's always fun beating Atlanta, but getting the sweep and knocking them out of First place? We may not win a World Series this year, but if we can keep beating the Braves and prevent them from getting to the Playoffs, I'll take that as a consolation prize.