The Philadelphia Phillies won their second straight game on Monday night, taking down the Pirates 3-2 in Philadelphia. Their record improves to 9-11.
- Solid major league debut for Jonathan Pettibone, who allowed just two runs over 5.1 innings. The rookie scattered six hits, and struck out six batters.
- Raul Valdes earned the win after one of his better appearances of the season. Valdes came on in relief for Pettibone in the sixth, and recorded the final two outs of the inning without surrendering a run.
- Antonio Bastardo, Mike Adams, and Jonathan Papelbon all pitched scoreless frames to finish off the game. With Bastardo rediscovering himself, the Phillies have a very effective 1-2-3 punch from the seventh inning and on.
- Good night at the plate for Jimmy Rollins, who went 2-3 and drove in two runs, including the go-ahead run in the sixth inning.
- John Mayberry batted second once again, and failed miserably in two opportunities to break the game open. Mayberry flailed badly at a pitch in the dirt in the fourth inning to strike out with the bases loaded, and struck out again with two runners in scoring position in the sixth inning.
- Chase Utley went 2-4 to raise his average to .306 for the year.
- Pettibone also helped himself offensively by drawing a walk and later coming around to score the first run of the ballgame.
Final Thoughts
Pettibone’s impressive debut made this a really nice win for the Phillies.
With John Lannan on the shelf for possibly two months, the Phils are going to need Pettibone or someone else within the organization step up and give them some kind of stability in the fifth starter’s role. The rookie was able to do that last night, and we’ll see if he’s able to continue his success later in the week.
Man Paulman imagine how good Bastardo would be if Charlie didn’t ruin his career. He has thrown 7.1 innings and given up 2 hits, if Charlie didn’t ruin him he would have thrown 7.1 innings with no hits and 22 strikeouts. Damn what could have been.
Bastardo has looked good lately
But Chalrie ruined both Bastardo’s & Stute’s 2012 Season’s by overusing them in 2011.. Is Stutes even Pitching yet, how is he doing, anyone know ???
so lets get this straight… in the midst of a great season the manager is now suppossed to manage for the following season? really? you continue with absurdities
when the season began paulman stated ‘charlie ruined stutes and bastardos careers’ now its 2012 season
great job by pettibone last night. hopefully morgan pitches for the phillies in 5 games not pettibone though…
morgan pitches today so it should be telling who will pitch next depending if his start is cut short today.
in other minor league news jessie biddle pitched an amazing gem last night:
It was the kind of night that conceives dreams; the kind of night that leaves baseball people speechless; the kind of night that affirms countless hours of work.
Jesse Biddle pitched in an Eastern League game Monday night in Harrisburg and retired the first 19 batters he faced. He completed seven innings, allowed one hit and two walks, and struck out 16. He twice doubled and scored a run.
2014 season starting pitchers could be quite good with potentially adam morgan, jesse biddle, cole and lee.
Mayberry is an infuriating baseball player who doesn’t appear to think through situations very well. Victorino was the same way. Jimmy survived a bad base running gaff last night (rundown), as did another player on the same play. Chase may be the only thinker on this team, and he made some boneheaded moves a few games ago. This team could use an infusion of baseball smarts.
Victorino, chase, Rollins can get away with not thinking at times because of their talent, Mayberry is just not good enough, if it weren’t for his pedigree I doubt he’d be on the big club, but I get your point, it can be very frustrating to watch
They could use sn infusion of smarts at the management level as well
Agree. Part of me wonders if Charlie has contributed to the dumbing down of this squad. Look, I think Charlie knows baseball pretty well, but I also tend to think he goes on gut feelings more than thought out strategy.
The fact that he has guys on his roster that still do boneheaded things (Jimmy swinging on first pitches) all these years later makes me wonder if he ever addresses the mental aspects of the game.