God bless you Eduardo Nunez: Phillies 5, Giants 4

The Phillies have won back-to-back games for the first time since July 5th and 6th. Back then, it was against the Braves. This time, the Giants paid the price of a weirdly resurgent Phillies. The Phillies beat them 5-4 in 12 long, long innings.

Let’s hit the highlights. Some non-Aaron Nola jamoke was pitching, and he really wasn’t great. He gave up all four runs the Phillies surrendered tonight. Down 4-0 in the seventh inning, Ryan Howard and Cameron Rupp hit back-to-back homers that were truly glorious. I love that stance that Howard gets into right after he hits a no-doubter. The bat is in its backswing and he straightens his legs and stands up tall, so the act of looking at his homer is part of the backswing. I’m going to miss it when he’s gone. And as for Rupp, he hit his homer 5-6 feet into the bushes behind straight away center. Rupp strong like bull! The Phils then tied it up in the bottom of the eighth on a walk and two singles.

They had two runners on in the ninth inning, and it could have ended the game. But Jimmy Paredes had to get two strikes by swinging at two pitches that were, no kidding, at least a foot away from the end of his bat. So with two strikes and two outs, he finally decides he shouldn’t swing, and the umpire calls the third strike to end the inning.

In the eleventh they also had two men on but couldn’t score, because the Phillies are trolling us all. I would also like to note that Bruce fucking Bochy, who was OUT OF CHALLENGES IN THE ELEVENTH INNING, saw a close play at first and decided to just nicely go out there and ask the umpires to review it anyway, even though, as I said, HE WAS OUT OF CHALLENGES. HE HAD NO MORE. HE USED THEM UP BY BEING WRONG. AND YET THE UMPIRES REVIEWED THE PLAY ANYWAY AND THE INNING ENDED. I DON’T CARE IF REVIEWING IT GOT THE CALL RIGHT. GETTING IT RIGHT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN THE POINT OF THE REPLAY REVIEW SYSTEM SINCE THEY DECIDED TO INCLUDE CHALLENGES. BUT I GUESS THAT DOESN’T MATTER WHEN IT’S BRUCE BOCHY, WHO I HATE, OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE FROM ALL THE ANGER.

It all finally, finally, finally ended in the 12th inning. George Kontos hit Tommy Joseph and walked Cesar Hernandez and was promptly replaced by Jake Peavy, newest member of the Giants bullpen. Then Eduardo Nunez, Giants third baseman, couldn’t get ahold of a ball hit by Aaron Altherr. The bases were loaded, and then Maikel Franco came to the plate. He lined a game-winning single up the middle and ran like crazy to avoid his insane teammates trying to pile on him.

A few other notes: Ryan Howard had three hits, and Odubel Herrera hit a triple. It was a good night.