The Philadelphia Phillies won their first game of the season on Thursday night, taking down the Braves 2-0 in Atlanta on Thursday.
- It took Cliff Lee until July 4 to win a game last season, but this year he got one in his first start. Lee understood how important it was for him to have a big game tonight. The ace spun a gem tonight, dominating the Braves over eight scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and striking out eight. Lee got stronger as the game went on, and turned in a dazzling performance.
- Nice to see Erik Kratz come up with a double with a man on in the first inning. Kratz came to the plate three times with two men on last night, and failed to come through in each at-bat.
- Lee also worked Kris Medlin with a great, patient at-bat in the second inning. Lee ran the count full, and drew a walk to load the bases with no outs.
- Ben Revere picked up an RBI with a groundout in the second inning that gave the Phillies their first lead of the season. Revere then immediately stole his second base of the season.
- Chase Utley has driven in at least one run in every game so far, picking up a sac-fly RBI in the second inning. Utley finished the game 1-2 with a walk.
- Jimmy Rollins went 2-3, and has hit in every game this season.
- Domonic Brown went 1-4, and has also picked up at least one hit in each of the team’s first three games.
- Laynce Nix made his first start of the season, and got the Phillies’ two-run second inning started with a leadoff single.
- Jonathan Papelbon shook off the two-run homer he allowed last night, and delivered his first save of the season.
Final Thoughts
Even though it’s only the third game of the season, this was a game that the Phillies needed to win. Starting the season 0-3 at the hands of the Atlanta Braves, and coming back to Philadelphia with Kyle Kendrick and John Lannan set to make the next two starts would not have been the way to start the season.
The Phillies needed to show that they could push back against the Braves. To send Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, and Cliff Lee to the mound in three games and come away with no victories just wouldn’t have sent a good message. But luckily Lee was more than up to the challenge, and was the stopper that the Phils so badly needed.
The explosive Atlanta lineup that roughed up Hamels, Halladay, and the bullpen for 16 runs in the first two games was held completely in check by Lee, and the Phillies were able to come out of Atlanta with a victory.
The Phillies now return to Philadelphia for a series against the Kansas City Royals, with Kyle Kendrick taking the mound for the home opener.
Lee looked good 2night. Stopped the bleeding. Another year, same broken record. When is this guy going to get some F^#@ing run support. Lack of clutch hitting & stranded runners in scoring position! Different year, same BS! Next 2 games, the hemorrhaging will continue, with KK & Lannan the stiff! Still baffled by his ridiculous signing!
Phils hit some rockets but the Braves D: outstanding.
Great Game last Evening by Cliff Lee and very much needed,
Now the Phils can hopefully relax a bit and start playing some solid ball
Both Howard and M Young appear to be thinking too much up at the plate and need to let loose and let it rip..Defense and Muddle Relief, I believe are going to be the sore spots on this 2013 Team..if they can hang close after the first 30 games or so, then get Chooch back, they will have a chance, but they need to get off to a decent to good start to remain close for the Bats/Braves have firepower and pitching that it’s unlikely that neither of them will get into prolong slumps as a Team.. Just win their upcoming Series’s 2 games to 1 and they can be right there
Cripes DCAR, give it a rest. You complain when they lose. You complain when they win. We got it already. You don’t like the makeup of the team.
ATL defense outstanding except for Upton missing that foul ball.
bugs, I’m unable to give it a rest, until Booben is fired! Because until then, we will NEVER, win another Division, let alone a WS! He is an inept, ill-equipped, overmatched, POS, with ZERO eye, for talent evaluations!
Positives I take from 1st Series of the Season
Revere, Rollins, Utley, Brown and Nix are having good-At Bats and appear to be seeing the Ball well up at the Plate . As I stated in above Post, Howard & Young need to relax up at the plate and let it rip
Now the Middle relief (Durbin, Valdes struggled) and their Team Defense
Is spotty at Best..
every pitch Lee threw was a strike — Even when a pitcher is red hot that potent Braves lineup works those counts. I hope the Phillies play a lot of teams this year after they play the braves, their pitching staff might very well be limping into a Phils series with exhaustion.
After 9 years in the Phillies organization Ryan Howard can’t hit a ball to the left side of the infield? 9 years like 5 hitting coaches
Lee averaged 13.2 pitches per inning
Howard isn’t nor should he try to hit ground balls to the left side…you really are showing true ignorance to the sport of baseball.
Phils scored both runs yesterday on outs. Revere a fielders choice pushed Nix home and an Utley fly ball sacrificed Kratz home. Nothing really to get excited about just a calm clap.
The Phils have a big problem they have mortgaged off the futuer of this team for guys that have zero chance to give this team a championship.
What future have they mortgaged? Who have they given up? Worley? As for nothing to get excited about its 162 game season, if they had gone to atl and won 2 of 3 there would be nothing to get excited about…
I still cant figure out the mortgage the future comment.
small ball won the game eos, legitimate plays in baseball, that’s the type of baseball missing here for years
Dcar, c’mon man, it’s going to be a long summer for you if you can’t lighten up a bit, find something good about this team, maybe we need Schiller back so you can take it out on him, maybe amp up the workouts a bit, or how about some knob creek, does wonders for paulman
Getting knob, at the creek is awesome. Is that what you meant? BWAHAHAHA!!!! In all seriousness, I can’t lighten up on them. They suck, & have NO SHOT, with Booben steering the vessel. I’m very down, & negative, on all 4 teams right now! We are in the era, of mid-late 1990’s, 2.0. We can only hope, with a few more signings, & great draft for the Birds, a good off-season for the Flyboys, & Boobens imminent dismissal, we can have some positive future outlooks! Sixers, are a black hole, & are 5 years away, from being 5 years away. I can’t enjoy a hopeless, old, overpaid, bunch of diva has-beens, never-will-be’s, being held together by match sticks, & bubble gum, & being ran by a lying, pompous, arrogant, inept, over-matched, unqualified, GM! Sorry, but he destroyed all of my love & excitement, for this team, with 3 straight, horrific off-seasons, & his horrific talent evaluation! A proper rebuild, with talented youth, & allocating their funds smartly, & properly, will be the only thing to make me optimistic again! I’ll still go to a few games, for my kids & Old ladies delight, & to enjoy the ambience of the park, but the team is not good enough, & I’m not getting my heart broke, & BP up, for these non-factors.
HAC I agree, what future was mortgaged, name one player they have traded thats done anything. Not one young player has done a thing in the majors to date other than be mediocre, or fail. They landed Halladay, Lee, Pence, Oswalt for those pieces and we were all on board at the time. The fact that they didn’t win another WS is on the players coming up small. Furthermore, the Phils current best prospects are Asche 3b, Joseph- C (who we got for Pence) and starting pitching, all positions that need to get younger and of need moving forward. I think the Phils are actually doing a decent job of getting younger on the fly, while still competing.
halladay=fraud
c lee hopefully retaught the phillies the old lesson not to disrespect him like they did in 2009 when they threw him away for garabage to promote the fraud…now even though the fraud is full blown exposed, they still started lee in third place. ridiculous
Halladay a fraud? Please explain
ever notice how theres ALWAYS an excuse for the fraud?
“i’ve got heat exhaustion”
“im workin on some…things”
“ive got a stomach virus”
“im reiventing myself as a pitcher”
what excuse will he use next start?
the league caught up to him, and now he freaks out everytime he goes out to pitch because he’s out of answers…he got by before when he had a little more speed, but he clearly doesnt know how to locate jack, and now he gets hammered around, and peons are still trying to say hes better than c lee
honestly…heat excchaustion and stomach viruses?
thats out of the mcnabb playbook (threw up in super bowl)
51-24. No hitter in playoffs and perfect game…. Fraud
stop using the no hitter and perfect game crutches…the marlins dont even count as a major leaugue team, and the no hitter was done against a first-time playoff team in the reds that were on the road and scared out of their minds. if the marlins had one real major leaguer, and if the reds had some stones, those hollow accomplishments would never exist
want the real halladay? look at the 2010 nlcs, when the fraud didnt learn from his mistakes, and continued to pitch to cody ross’s favorite part of the plate…the result? multiple home runs at the worst possible time.
wake up, he’s been a good pitcher in his career, but hes nothing special. even nonames like dallas brayden throws perfect games, and no one throws their name into the greatest category like they for halladay for some reaosn
I might be arguing with the stupidest man on earth…2 cy youngs, 5 other times in the top 5 in cy voting…51-24 in his three years with the Phil’s and that includes his bad year last year…complete fraud…
109876ers is retarded.
do you even watch games? or do you just look at stats? comeon everyone knows that stats lie, and this is NO exception…
and dont misunderstand me, by no means is he a bad pitcher…but again he’s just NOT the immortal guy he’s been built up to be.
just look at him the other night…sweating like a pig, face colored a hot shade of red…giving up homers left and right. he’s got no more lightning in the bottle, and he tricked a lot of people along the way with the hollow achivement games, those were the wood he used to make his bandwagon, and now more and more people realize his bandwagon got them nowhere
he was advertised as a god.
but in reality
he’s just a fraud.
Right .. I have watched him pitch just about every game for three years … He wasn’t dominant at all … He won all 51 games against depleted teams.. On and by the way that marlins team he no hit ..it’s starters had a .280 average. Rameriz, your boy Cody Ross and a young Stanton… So go back in your hole
Of you want to say he is not the pitcher he once was I agree but fraud is just idiotic
let me reach into “doc’s” book of excuses (not becasue i actually believe this, but to illustrate my point)
hanley ramirez sucks
cody ross had a stomach virus on perfect game day
stanton was, as you say, young, and didnt know how to hit major leauers yet
and yeah 51 games…so what? honestly, jamie moyer won 250 in his career…again dont throw meaningless stats at me, the question is does he past the eye tesT?
and if youve got keen eyes, the answer is ovbious
Woah, woah woah.
Lee pitched 2 games against those same SF Giants in the WS. Let’s match them with Halladay
Lee – Game 1- 4.2 IP, 8 hits, 7 runs (6 ER)
Halladay – Game 1 – 7.0 IP, 8 hits, 4 ER
Halladay wins this round
Lee Game 2- 7.0 IP, 6 Hits, 3ER
Halladay Game 2 – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER and a win
Halladay wins this round
Totals
Lee- 0-2, 6.94 ERA, 11.2 IP, 14 hits and 9 ER
Halladay 1-1, 4.15 ERA, 13.0 IP, 14 hits and 6 ER
So who pitched better against the Giants in 2010. Halladay or Lee?
Look at the career stats brother and then tell me Lee is better.
Just career ERA
Lee = 3.57
Halladay = 3.32
You win the Phil’s were stupid to bring in Halladay… They would have been better off with Myers, happ and Kendrick… Every Halladay win was meaningless, he sucks and is a fraud.
exactly, imagine what they could have done with an extra 20 mil this offseason if they werent tied down to him?
myers, happ, and kendrick helped win in 08, you just have to be smart when you scout a pitcher for your rotation, but you dont need to be throwing all the gold away on one guy
Yeah they didn’t win any division titles with Roy… You are right finishing 3rd in 2010 and 11 would have been great! Damn.
halladay wouldnt have made a difference either year…because if we didnt throw away lee, we’d still have him for 2010, and we could have used the 20 mil to keep werth in 2011…you can only wonder “what if”
Ok you are officially the dumbest gcobb postr
what because i dont believe the nonsense everyone else throws out there and i actually try act a little insightful and think outside of the box?
lee’s been flat out better than halladay every year. while the fraud served up homers in the nlcs, lee carried the rays through the postseason like he did the phillies in 09 (who then disrespectfully and arrogantly tossed him aside)
werth would have filled our need for offense, and he wouldnt have been the defensive butcher henter pence was…and we wouldnt never trade for pence in the first place, saving us valuable prospects that we could have used to get justin upton this year but instead hes at at the braves, and all of this is because we just HAD to get halladay…
oh and i forgot, we’d still have the pieces from the hallday trade, including travis daround, who could have been catching for us instead of kratz right now…
Yeah Werth has been great the last 2 years…. Oh wait
2011 = .232, 20 HRs and 58 RBI in 150 games
2012 = 5 HRs in 81 games
Don’t be a revisionist with Pence. Everyone wanted him at the time. The 3 seasons prior to the Phils trading for him he hit about .275 with 25 HRs per with about 80 RBIs a game. In 2011 in 100 games with Houston he hit .308 with 11 HRs and 62 RBI. Then in 54 games with the Phils that year he hit .324 with 11 Hrs and 35 RBI. And at that point, Dom Brown was the next big thing and he didn’t go over in the trade. No one, not even you could have predicted that he would drop off that much which was mainly because of Howard and Utley being in and out of the lineup.
As far as Halladay goes, you are an idiot.
For the Post season, here are his stats:
5 starts, 3-2, 2.37 ERA, 38 IP with 35 Ks with a no hitter. Yeah that guy sucks.
I love Lee, but he hasn’t been as great as you make him out to be. In 2009 absolutely, he was dominant in the playoffs. IN 2010, for the Rangers and not the Rays, he was great until the WS.
2010 WS- 2 starts, 0-2, 6.94 ERA, gave up 10 runs in 11IP.
And in 2011, back for the Phils, 0-1, 7.5 ERA, and he gave up 5 runs on 12 hits in 6 IP. He was atrocious in that game. Halladay was better than him in the playoffs that year.
So what else do you have? If you want to complain about something, complain about how Ruben got nothing for Lee when he traded him away. Aumont is just OK, but he could and should have gotten Brandon Morrow.
And Pence had 80 RBI a year, not a game. Wow that would have been incredible.
Bugs you are turning into as big of an idiot as me… Because you have to be an idiot to argue with a freaking known idiot.
You are right Cigar. I just posted Lee/Halladay 2010 post season stats against the Giants above and then I thought “why I am arguing who is better between Halladay and Lee?” And then I realized that I was never going to get that 20 minutes back. Haha.
Wish I was down at CBP.
now listen you, let me tell you something about revisiontist history…
werth sucked in 2011 because he stepped into an empty nationals lineup that didnt know how to win, and last year he got hurt…if he stayed in philly, where he had a comfort zone, and a great camraderie with his teammates, he stays the same werth that was a key in our lineup
and read my stuff carefully, i NEVER said i didnt want pence…i was just pointing out that if werth were here, pence trade never happens, and our prospects are saved…as would be the prospects form the halladay trade
if we’d just kept lee and never went after halladay, wed be in such a better position today…those prospects could have been used in other deals, we wouldnt have holes at third base or all over the outfield.
and so what if lee had a bad game ONE time in 2011…i’ll go to battle with him anyday over halladay…
you dont wanna hear it, you dont wanna listen but its the truth…halladay failed us, and the team’s problems today can be traced to the decision to throw away lee and throw 20 million at halladay
phillies today as a result of halladay trade: decent team, but no outfielders, no third baseman, and only two legitimate starting pitchers, and 20 million of dead weight in the form of the fraud.
if flawed halladay trade doesnt happen:
Phillies still have lee 2010, 2010 meets similar, if not more successful fate
Phillies still have kyle drabek, michael taylor, travid darondond as prospects/trade chips
Phillies use money thrown at halldays feet to keep their five-hole hitter werth
werth in familar territory performs at high level, phillies offense remains powerful, Lee, Hamels, Oswalt rotation strong enough to meet with similar if not more successful results in 2011
No hunter pence trade happens, no need to part with singleton, cosart, and gose
Phillies can use the 20 million and six trade chips saved up from not trading for halladay/pence, and turn them into help to fill holes in infield/outfield/rotation
Phils would then be an even stronger team today…not to mention no jason werth to nationals, nationals become a weaker team, if phillie use trade chips, upton is ours, braves are weaker, phillies would be class of NL East…but noooooo use idiots had to go and embrace halladay…
Good thing you aren’t a GM
have a cirgar,
honestly, what are we missing here? i’ve given you about as calm and logical a case as i possibly can and you dont wanna listen to reason.
talk to me, lets figure this out
They were trying to win ….they wanted a HOF pitcher who could win 20… They gave up prospects because you have to give up something. Drabek was the key piece and he has stunk. The other guys might contribute but they were trying to win. Werth is not worth 20 million so that part of your argument is worthless… They took a shot, they had a great team that didnt get it done in the end…that’s sports but I don’t think you get that
Bottom line, no player is either Great or Terrible. It takes an entire 25
man Roster, some luck on the injury front, a good game Manager
and get into the Playoofs, then anything can happen, a hot Pitcher
, a hot hitter or two, key hits by small name players and a few fortunate breaks
We see it in the BFL and Vasevall and even Hockey every Season
The Championshios are won by players stepping up in the big moments,
The real key is how do you get to the Post-Season to begin with and it usually starts with having a Team that competes the best within your own Division first..
Paul have you been at happy hour?
Oh my… Phil’s collapse
10976er made a cogent case as to why the Halladay trade was not wise, I appreciate this thinking outside the box, good job there
He totally ignored the 40 wins in his first two years, 2 division titles… In his argument those things mean nothing
All I know is if the Phils can get their Middle Relief Pitchers
Situated and quickly, the Season will be a huge disappointment
109876ers, as I told you months ago, when you tried your Halladay is a fraud BS! A future, 1st ballot HOF, with multiple CY Awards, twice runner up, multiple no hitters, a perfect game, 8 All Star games, 3 20 win seasons, 19 twice, 200 wins, 2690 innings pitched, career 3.32 era, 2,000 K’s, 404 games pitched, 66 CG’s, 20 shut outs, hardly, defines A FRAUD! He is a shot pitcher, that, IMHO, is either hiding an injury, is truly done. You should look no further, than your screen name, for the f^#@ing FRAUDS-
“109876ers”