The Philadelphia Phillies (30-35) and the Toronto Blue Jays (36-31) are heading to Philly to wrap the back-end of a home-and-home four game series, the teams split the two games in Toronto.
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Marcus Stroman (6-2) allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings to win for the first time in four starts.
“They have pesky hitters”, Gibbons said.
The young-and-up coming Phillies played some pretty good baseball in the first two months of the season. He has different weapons.
“You just. you did… you just…I just don’t know.”
It wasn’t the greatest of games but a lot of it had to do with the defence. He wasn’t great, allowing an Asche double and a walk, but closed the game out unscathed. 238 with 15 doubles, two home runs and 16 RBIs in 51 games.
The Blue Jays dropped the first game of this series to the tune of a 7-0 thrashing in which RA Dickey took the loss but they have responded in a big way in each of the last two outings and will be out to win the series with another big outing on Thursday. Through 13 starts, Happ is now 7-3 with a 3.70 ERA and he has only walked 2.6 batters per nine innings.
Donaldson doubled and scored in the first, doubled home a run in the second and hit his third career grand slam in the third.
Josh Donaldson also homered and made a pair of sparkling defensive plays for Toronto, which won for the fifth time in six games.
“I’m the shortest pitcher in the big leagues and I realize that, so I have to be very conscious about pitching down in the zone”, the 5-foot-8 Stroman said. He made two outstanding plays at third base, including a long throw from several feet beyond the foul line to rob Hellickson of a hit.
“That’s the best Cody has looked in a while”, Mackanin said.
Phillies: Hard to really pick a player to keep an eye on for the Phillies with a left-handed pitcher on the mound.
Edwin Encarnacion put the Jays on the board leading off the second inning, when he turned on and absolutely crushed a 91 miles per hour fastball that was breaking in and likely off the plate when he hit it. But when Encarnacion is en fuego, it doesn’t much matter and it landed in the second deck. He has five homers in the last four games. “Everything is fine. Everybody has bad times, you know?”
Phillies second. Cody Asche homers to right field.
Blue Jays: RHP Marco Estrada (4-2, 2.57) starts for Toronto on Wednesday. Hellickson wanted no part of Donaldson or Encarnacion, walking them on 8 pitches, after which they immediately took off and advanced with easily when the ball got away anyway. He’s thrown 85 1/3 innings and the team has him on an innings limit.
Double-double it was, though, despite the pilfer-times-two occurring on a wild pitch from Philly starter Jeremy Hellickson, with Russell Martin at the plate, either deliberately or awkwardly showing bunt, the ball in any event skittering all the way to the screen. He has been out of the lineup since May 27 because of soreness in his right quadriceps.
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Phillies: 3B Maikel Franco didn’t start for the third straight game because of a sprained right knee. Girodo pitched a scoreless inning in relief, and Burns flied out as a pinch hitter.
