The Ian Hamilton Revenge Game: Yankees 8 Phillies 1

Not sure why you’re reading this but thank you and have a great night.

The Phillies’ winless season continues with a blowout loss to New York, where mentioning the score would make fans want to puke.

The torture began with the leadoff batter, DJ LeMahieu taking a 3-2 splitter to center field that sinks right under the glove of Brandon Marsh for a leadoff triple. After back-to-back walks from Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo to load up the bases, Taijuan Walker executes a tough slider to get Stanton to ground out. Then made a good splitter to Gleyber Torres but the normally strong defensive pitcher has a ball go off his glove into no man’s land. The Yankees scored only two but the game may as well have ended there.

Speaking of Walker’s defense, he redeemed himself defensively with one of the best plays you’ll see from a pitcher this season.

The new Phillies right-hander mostly settled down but allowed a cheap homer from Torres off a full-count fastball that barely cleared right field. Rob Thomson was forced to pull him after a long 4.1 innings, throwing 87 pitches in the process.

Yunior Marté came in and disaster struck. Rizzo hit a ball that hasn’t landed yet, three Yankees walked, Frenchy Cordero (who of course is a Yankee) singles, and even Jose Trevino got a hit of a hanging slider. Five runs scored and the route was on.

Walker pitched better than the stat line indicated with five strikeouts and his fastball topping out at 96 mph.

Caleb Cotham and the pitching coaches have come up with creative game plans to maximize their pitchers this season, including Bailey Falter, who had a near-even split between fastballs and curveballs on Sunday.

Walker threw 27 splitters, mostly spamming them in any big spot he was forced into. He threw his slider 19 times with five called strikes plus whiffs. Walker also mixed in an even split between his sinkers and four-seamers, making the Yankees feel off-balance all night.

On the other side, the Phillies threatened in the second with a Bohm base hit off no knees and a Darick Hall single off one but to no avail when Sosa popped out on a high four-seam and a Stott hit a check-swing grounder to third.

It certainly wasn’t Brandon Marsh’s night, after he somehow inside outs a down and in heater to left field, JT Realmuto hits a single to right field where Marsh was caught in between rounding home and staying at third. Cordero comes up firing towards home, forcing Marsh to head back to third but hesitated and was tagged out.

To all fans, the highlight of the night came in the top of the sixth when former Phillie Ian Hamilton got the chance of a lifetime.

One of Ned Rice’s first-ever moves as interim General Manager, Hamilton was claimed off waivers in December but once Dombrowski was hired, he let the righty go to sign Realmuto for five years. Hamilton exacts his revenge by obliterating the Phillies with his “slombio” pitch, a combination between a slider and changeup (just call it a slangeup, slombio stinks). Some would argue this was Dombrowski’s worst move since trading for Alfredo Simón back in 2014.

With the bullpen being tasked to throw four or more innings for the third time this season, Matt Strahm will need to eat innings with a 65-pitch count tomorrow night at 7:05. Strahm has not pitched more than two innings in a game since July 2 of 2019, good luck.