Luke Weaver is learning that he doesn’t need to be so flawless.
Advertisement
Jeremy Hellickson tossed seven innings of two-run ball to pick up the win. “(Velocity) might go down, but that’s where you have to utilize your secondary pitches, and that’s one of the things I couldn’t do (Sunday)”. St. Louis’ motivation to keep going after that second wild-card spot in the National League, though, should make the ultimate difference in the rubber contest.
“If you can get a few runs on the board and have that much of a lead, then you can go into a little more of an attack mode”, Leake said. “He’s a guy that’s been able to work in the zone and the bottom of the zone and trust his stuff and not feel like he has to be flawless”. The Redbirds posted nine hits with Jeremy Hazelbaker cracking a two run homer.
“It’s pretty impressive what these guys are doing up and down the lineup”, Gyorko said. “We’ve got a lot of guys in the lineup who can do a lot of damage”.
“It’s hard to hit one a game for a consistent amount of time”, Matheny said. “You could it the way guys were taking their at-bats there was an opportunity to maybe do it again”.
Randal Grichuk homered early, then hit an RBI double in the 11th inning that sent St. Louis over the Philadelphia Phillies 4-3 Friday night for their fifth straight win.
The Phillies are now 10-10 on both Saturdays and Sundays and are three games under.500 at home, 30-33 (.476).
“What a tough loss”, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said.
“Without question”, Mackanin said.
Hellickson skipped his last start because of back tightness.
Rangers 6, Rays 2: At St. Petersburg, Florida, Adrian Beltre led off consecutive innings with home runs and Cole Hamels didn’t give up a hit until the sixth in the Texas Rangers’ victory over Tampa Bay.
Velasquez is likely nearing an innings limit, but the Phillies said they don’t have an exact number or date in mind just yet. And that, coupled with a pair of upcoming off days this week, is good news for what had up until recently been a largely overworked bullpen.
The best that can be said for Velasquez’s performance is that he pitched six innings for the first time in four starts this month.
Mets 2, Giants 0 -At San Francisco: Curtis Granderson ended Jeff Samardzija’s no-hit bid with a double to lead off the seventh inning. The Phillies have gotten Hernandez to level his swing midseason, and he is batting.350 since June 27. “When something like that happens and you don’t really trust it after that, it can bother you a little”, he said.
The Phillies appeared to have runners on second and third with one out in the eighth, looking to extend a 3-1 lead.
The Cardinals tied it in the third. Velasquez has now lost each of his last three starts, with 19 earned runs and eight home runs surrended in 16 1/3 innings. St. Louis are 9-2 in the last 11 meetings and the Over is 7-3-1 in the last 11 meetings.
Altherr’s homer was the first the Phillies have hit off Broxton since Matt Stairs’ pinch-hit homer in Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS at Los Angeles. He’ll look to continue a strong 2016 campaign Saturday night against the St. Louis Cardinals against RHP Luke Weaver (0-0, 4.50). After being treated at the seat for several minutes, the fan was carried out to the concourse by an adult into the waiting arms of medical personnel. Adam Wainwright struggled a bit with a wet mound in Philadelphia on Friday night but battled to complete six innings.
Advertisement
The teams conclude their three-game series Sunday when Cardinals RHP Mike Leake (8-9, 4.78) faces RHP Vince Velasquez (8-5, 4.14).
