Adventures in outfielding: Braves 6, Phillies 2

According to the radio broadcast, the last time the Phillies swept the Braves in a four-game series in Philadelphia was September of 1949. Coming into today, the Phillies had a chance to change that. Unfortunately, today wasn't that day.

The hitting started early. In the first inning, Maikel Franco absolutely *crushed* a baseball to left field, a monster home run if it hadn’t been for the foul pole being placed where it was. So it was just a long, long, monstrous foul ball. Franco struck out and slammed his helmet in frustration, and Julio Teheran seemed to take offense. In the second inning, Ryan Howard continued his DANGEROUSLY HOT STREAK when he skied a fly ball to center right field that could have been out, or it could have been a fly ball, but according to the sun, it was just too hard to see it. Braves center fielder Eury Perez couldn’t see the ball and it dropped against the wall and bounded away, and Ryan Howard slid belly first into second. Teheran plunked Domonic Brown, and then he and Howard each moved up a base on a Galvis sac bunt. After all that, a run finally scored when Cody Asche singled.

In the third inning, the Phillies had their own outfield adventure. Odubel Herrera made a fabulous leaping catch from a dead run in center, which I can't embed here because MLB is a bunch of butts, but you can watch here. And Domonic Brown made to sun-in-face catches as well.

The Braves tied the game in the fifth when Chris Johnson plated Maybin with a single, and then they took the lead on a Jace Peterson three-run homer off Adam Morgan. But the Phils continued to hit, and with two outs, and got one back in the bottom of the fifth. It felt like they were inching back.

Then Justin De Fratus took over for Morgan, he with the .328 opponents batting average against right handers. He pitched a clean sixth inning, but in the seventh he coughed up another run and was replaced by Jeanmar Gomez, who at this point might actually be pitching every day for the amount I feel like I’ve seen him. He allowed a hit and one of De Fratus’ runs to score, bringing the score to 6-2.

The Phillies made a little noise in the eighth and ninth, but it wasn’t meant to be today. The streak is over. But: the Phillies had 10 hits today. And they’ve had 10 or more hits for the fifth straight home game, something that hasn’t happened since September of 2010. (Thanks to the Phillies broadcast for that stat.)

The Phillies have the spirit in them right now, and that is always some fun baseball to watch. They have an off day tomorrow, but they’ll be back at it on Tuesday when the Dodgers and Jimmy Rollins come to town. Get out your hankies.