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Long story short: The Phils dropped a tough one to the A's this afternoon in Oakland, capping off their third and final west coast trip of the year with a 2-5 record. Not great, unfortunately. Maybe next year we'll beat those left coasters.
Making perhaps his second to last start ever, A.J. Burnett was... A.J. Burnettish. Tagged for six runs in four and a third innings, he did so with only three hits, but six walks and two hit batsmen. He also struck out three.
Rough.
Cesar Jimenez, Luis Garcia, Jake Diekman and Justin De Fratus picked up the slack in what has become a rather strong bullpen for the Phils, combining to pitch four and two-thirds scoreless, each allowing a single hit, but combining a total of three walks with seven strikeouts. This was enough for the Phillies' offense to claw their way back to a 6-6 tie.
Unfortunately, Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez was not so sharp, allowing a one out single to Billy Burns and a walk-off two-run home run to Josh Donaldson in the tenth.
On the other side of the plate, the Phils' hitters were paced by the old-timers, with Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Marlon Byrd each having a two-hit day. Byrd hit two doubles, driving in three runs; and Howard doubled as well, scoring one. Utley scored twice. Ben Revere also had two hits, improving his average to .308 on the year, but the Batting Title is probably out of reach for him at this point.
Cody Asche had a solid day with two hits, and Freddy Galvis continued his recent offensive surge, with an RBI triple in the sixth. Galvis' season OPS is still a woeful .564, but he's at .844 in the second half of the season in limited, if more consistent, playing time. So who knows.
The Phillies are now at 71-85, with six games remaining. After an off-day tomorrow, they travel to Miami for a three game set, before returning home to host the Atlanta Braves for the final three games of the year.
Oh, and speaking of the Braves:
#Braves swept by the #Mets, 10-2 the final. Atlanta (76-79) now officially eliminated from Postseason play.
— Kevin McAlpin (@KevinMcAlpin) September 21, 2014
Suck it, Barves.
I'd like to apologize to our readership on behalf of all of us at The Good Phight for the general tardiness of this recap. We had some internal mis-communications regarding scheduling.
Good night, folks!