Well Philadelphia, it was a good night to go see Billy Joel at Citizens Bank Park. It was a nice evening to see John Legend at the Mann. Hell, Miley Cyrus at Wells Fargo may have even been fun! Maybe you accidentally cut yourself with a kitchen knife and had to be rushed to the emergency room and got stuck watching the news while waiting to get stiched up. Tonight was the night for all of that!
While Elton John once sang "Saturday Night's alright for fighting" the only fight we saw from the Phillies tonight in game three against Washington was when A.J. Burnett and Ryne Sandberg got sent to an early shower after Burnett tried to teach Chris Guccione what an outside pitch looked like after letting up a five spot, featuring a three run homer from Anthony Rendon in 1.2 innings. Everyone got their money's worth but unfortunately there was still a ballgame to play and it was still very early.
Phillippe Aumont was the first out of the gate. For a pitcher who could be one bad frame away from being booted from the roster and possibly the organization, he sure earned it over two innings giving up eight hits and six runs. Cesar Jimenez would hold the Nationals to the 11 runs they had put up over the next 2.1 innings. Basically both teams went into automatic pilot at that point.
As for the position players, their at bats were sloppy and so was their defense. They checked out of the game when Burnett did basically which is why if you had any sort of errand you had to run tonight like a Saturday night trip to Ikea, I envy you. Jordan Zimmerman ran with this pathetic display and shut out the Phillies over seven innings, scattering five hits and striking out eight.
There was some humor at the end when Larry Bowa put Darin Ruf in to play third base when it was time to empty the bench. The only surprising thing was he didn't option for a position player to pitch the 8th. If there was anything positive to take away from this one it was a good inning from Mario Hollands who was in need of a good outing. Antonio Bastardo pitched a scoreless 8th as well as he still seems to be a trade candidate here in August.
The only thing this game brought us that was really worth while was the promise of tomorrow which is Cole Hamels, who has been as dominant as ever the last five outings. He matches up against Stephen Strasburg for the 1:35 conclusion of this series. As for myself, I'm going to try to forget about this one.
