The Phillies continued their dominance over the Padres in PETCO Park beating the Padres 2-0 tonight, and making it 12 wins in a row in the Pads home digs going back to 2008.
Vance Worley was working his entire repertoire from the first pitch, making especially good use of his 2-seam fastball inside to lefties to record a career high 10 K’s.
THE GOOD:
- Joe Wieland looked MUCH better in his second career start. He showed some signs of jitters in the first walking the leadoff man, Juan Pierre, who would eventually score the deciding run, but after working out of the early trouble he settled down nicely retiring 17 of the last 19 batters he faced.
- The bullpen notched another 3 innings allowing zero earned runs, lowering their already N.L. leading ERA to 2.03.
- Chase Headley reaching base safely 3 times tonight, and has now reached base safely in 6 of his last 8 plate appearances.
THE BAD:
- Padres offense shutout, striking out 10 times, and going 2-for-11 tonight with runners on base.
THE DIFFERENCE:
- The old saying, “Walks will kill you!” was proven correct once again tonight. The padres pitching staff issued only two walks tonight – both ended up scoring for the only runs of the ballgame.
- The Pads had a prime chance to tie the game in the 2nd with a leadoff triple by Jeremy Hermida, but they couldn’t get him in.
- The Phils in the 6th inning perfectly executed the defense of a 1st-and-3rd steal attempt by the Padres, throwing out Will Venable at the plate to snuff out one of their few rallies.
As expected the battle between two offensively challenged teams came down to a close, low scoring contest that was ultimately decided by the team able to scratch out some runs from whatever crack in the door might be offered by the opponent. Tonight it was the Phils pushing both their free passes across the plate, while the Pads squandered their two opportunities to score the man from third with less than 2 outs. With the pitching match ups not getting any easier over the next few day, the Pads have to find a way to start taking advantage of the scoring opportunities that are presented to them. They have now had 9 of their 14 games decided by two runs or less. They are not getting blown out by any means, and for the most part have tightened up the defense, but they must find a way to start executing more consistently with runners in scoring position.
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