St. Louis Cardinals’ Brandon Moss follows through on a home run off Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Vince Velasquez in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016, in Philadelphia. Leake did not get a decision in a 6-4 win at the Cubs last time out with three runs scoring in six innings. Through his first five starts, he was 4-1 and his ERA was a glittering 1.44. “They have success in the minor leagues, they come up here and think they have to make flawless pitches”. I know I’ve got to enjoy this adversity here and I’ve got to deal with it; manage to go with the flow and build on it. “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 ideal”.
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Jeremy Hazelbaker homered and Jhonny Peralta had three hits for St. Louis, which had won five in a row. Fourth overall in baseball in home runs, St. Louis has ridden their slugging offense to a 66-57 record, which now has them in place as the National League’s second wild card team.
“You’ve got a guy like Hellickson that can give you the seven innings that we needed”, Mackanin said.
Moss agreed that the Cardinals’ DNA is the home run. “But now people are going to start timing you”, he said. “I had a meeting with him and Freddy early in the season and just told them to go do what they can do and have the best year that they can, not to worry about it, compete on a daily basis and let the cards fall where they may”. “You could it the way guys were taking their at-bats there was an opportunity to maybe do it again”.
Maikel Franco had two hits, including a double and the winning RBI, and Aaron Altherr homered for the Phillies.
The Phillies are now 10-10 on both Saturdays and Sundays and are three games under.500 at home, 30-33 (.476).
With the loss to St. Louis, the Phillies are nine games out of the second wild card spot, but Hellickson says he’s been through worse.
“We got hit pretty bad”, Mackanin said.
Hellickson said he felt fine and expects to be back on a regular every-fifth-day schedule.
If you want to view a common thread to Velasquez’s first Phillies season, see that over his first 19 games, which accounted for 102 2/3 innings pitched, he allowed 11 home runs.
“I heard it and read it”, Hellickson said. “But it was good to save the bullpen a little tonight”. “So just getting ahead and making quality 0-0 pitches, I was able to throw my off-speed (pitches) for strikes and keep my fastball down for the most part”. Two outs later with Hernandez at third base, Franco smashed a single to left field.
Hector Neris allowed a hit and struck out three in the eighth before Jeanmar Gomez worked the ninth to earn his 33rd save. Among the Phillies’ hitters, Ryan Howard has three of their four home runs against Leake. He retired the Cardinals in order in the second and third innings on 22 combined pitches, which raised his total to 50. The Phillies have gotten Hernandez to level his swing midseason, and he is batting.350 since June 27. “It’s really nothing we think about, though”. His night ended in the top of the seventh after 91 pitches when Gyorko led off with a single.Morgan’s only blemish came on Grichuk’s second-inning home run that tied the score at one apiece. St. Louis are 9-2 in the last 11 meetings and the Over is 7-3-1 in the last 11 meetings.
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The Reds wasted no time pouncing on Norris as the first five batters reached base, four with hits, including Votto’s blast over the center field wall for his 20th home run of the season.
