In the tenth: Phillies 5, Giants 3

Cole Hamels was, if not outstanding, at least good this evening, scattering nine hits and a pair of walks over seven innings, and limiting the Giants to three runs in the fourth. He struck out five.

But, as tradition now apparently requires, the Phillies' conspired against him. The offense managed only a single run during his seven, on a solo home run by Marlon Byrd. After he was done, however, Darin Ruf doubled leading off the eighth, and Cody Asche followed up with a two run shot to tie the game. That, of course, was all they'd get in nine innings.

For his part, the Giants' ace, I guess, Madison Bumgarner, was very good. Four hits and no walks over his seven, and nine strikeouts. Also he was born in 1989. I mean, it's tough to complain too much about the offense against Bumgarner, because he is legitimately an excellent pitcher.

Replacing Hamels was Ken Giles, who, I have to say, is something else. 100 miles per hour, a wicked slider, 37 strikeouts in 25 innings, and a godawful nickname. Giles pitched a clean 8th and 9th, allowing two hits, and striking out one, but he made all eight hitters he faced look somewhat foolish.

Anyway, after nine innings, the score was matched at 3-3. Three Luv. Three all. Tres-to-tres.

Right.

In the top of the tenth, then, Asche led off with a line drive double. Andres Blanco came on as a pinch hitter, and attempted to bunt him to third for some reason, but the Giants' infield attempted to get fancy and catch the runner. Asche was safe, though, so the Phillies had two on with no outs.

Ben Revere flied out, but Jimmy Rollins drew a walk, loading the bases, and bringing up Chase Utley.

I want to take a second here to complain about the relative dearth of embeddable videos on MLB.com. Come on, MLBAM, it's easy to do. Seriously, you have this embeddable, but not the game-winning play? Come on guys!

Anyway, Utley did the most Utley thing, drawing a RBI HBP. As it happens, it was a GWRBIHBP, but we'll get to that.

Ryan Howard followed with a sac fly for some insurance, and he saved up to 15% with GEICO. Everybody knows that Phrozen. Well, did you know that a tired guy writes a terrible recap?

The 5-3 lead would have to do, though, as Marlon Byrd followed with a shallow flyout to end the inning. Enter Jonathan Papelbon.

Bunter Pants grounded out to Asche at third.

Buster 'All-American Straight Shooter' Posey grounded out to Rollins at short.

Flablo Blabloslab grounded out to Utley at second.

Huh. Papelbon is an equal-opportunity groundball machine, I guess.

With the win, Giles' second, the Phillies improve to 54-68, and, more importantly, drop the Giants to 63-58, and five games behind Los Angeles.

Fangraph of Victory

Source: FanGraphs

There are two more games in this series to finish up this last west coast road trip, but they're both 4:05 ET starts, so they won't be all-nighters. Tomorrow Kyle Kendrick faces off against Tim Hudson, and on Sunday, the Giants' John Fremont goes for a rematch against President James Buchanan.

Goodnight all!