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What happens when a team that's better than they've been playing meets a team that's worse than they've been playing?
You get today's game, and presumably tomorrow's and Thursday's as well.
Tonight, the Phillies came out on top in a 3-2 win, and I was unable to stop staring at the Braves' social campaign, #ChopOn, which was plastered just behind home plate. It's a nice reminder that even though the Braves are moving into a completely unnecessary, borderline inaccessible, stupendously stupid new stadium, that doesn't mean they need to leave their racist traditions behind.
hey y'all let's rally with our racist chant
— Jess (@ilovechooch) May 11, 2016
I don't care how bad the Braves are. I will always hate them.
But back to the game, which the Phillies won on the back of an outstanding pitching performance from Adam Morgan. He went seven full innings, which he's only done twice before in his young career, and allowed just one run on four hits. He walked only one batter, and he didn't do that until the seventh inning. And by the way, he started the seventh inning with 74 pitches. He ended the seventh (and his night) having thrown 90 pitches, 30 for strikes.
A great outing for Adam Morgan, who hit 94 mph in the seventh inning. The added velocity makes him a different pitcher.
— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) May 11, 2016
Over on the hitting side, there weren't a lot of runs, but there were a lot of hits. The Phillies had nine hits on the night, and three of them belonged to Maikel Franco. One of the runs weren't even scored on a hit, it was scored on a sac fly from Freddie Galvis. But delightfully, one of the other runs was scored on a home run from Maikel Franco. He opened the eighth inning by smacking a dinger on the very first pitch to just beyond the left field wall.
That Franco home run became even more important in the bottom of the ninth, when Jeanmar Gomez gave up just his second home run of the year to Freddie Freeman.
Freeman's homer is the 16th two-strike home run Phils pitching has allowed, which would tie them with Milwaukee for most in the NL.
— Paul Boyé (@paul_boye) May 11, 2016
The Braves inched another run closer to a tie, but they only had 2 more outs to work with. They had a chance, with Gomez taking everyone for a ride with his puzzling pitching strategy.
Jeanmar Gomez taking the unorthodox approach of "allowing nothing but fly balls in a tight game." Let's see how it works out.
— Dash (@DashTreyhorn) May 11, 2016
Shockingly, even despite Gomez almost trying to give up home runs, the Braves weren't able to score another run, and Gomez got his major league leading 12th save.
Here are some super neat stats I got from the radio broadcast: tonight was the Phillies' 12th one-run victory of the season. They are 12-3 in one-run games. Last season, they won a total of 16 one-run games, a figure they're sure to surpass in 2016. There is no way this is sustainable. Not even a little bit. But I'm enjoying the hell out of it while it lasts.
In 1942, the Phillies won 10 straight one-run games. Tonight was their seventh in a row. I think the Phillies can get there. At this point, why not?
The Phillies won, guys! They played the Braves and they won! I absolutely love when that happens. And so does our own resident gif master, Chris Jones.
COME AT US pic.twitter.com/wKhcjwAPV5
— chris jones¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@LONG_DRIVE) May 11, 2016