The Phillies go for a sweep of the Giants and a 2 1/2 game lead in the NL Wild Card race as Jonathan Sanchez faces Cole Hamels. Sanchez doesn’t seem to fatigue this season. If you look at his opposition batting stats by inning, they never decline. That’s very impressive. Tonight’s game will be Hamels seventh start since the All-Star break. In that time he’s posted a 2.14 ERA with outstanding strikeout, walk and home run numbers. His record is 0-2. The Phillies won the first four of those games, but lost his last two starts 1-0.
The Twins try to send the White Sox six games back as veterans Mark Buehrle and Carl Pavano battle in Minneapolis. Mark is six starts away from his tenth straight year of 30 starts or more, and 46 1/3 innings away from ten straight years of 200 innings. No one pitched more innings over the last 10 seasons. Pavano is coming on strong with the Twins, going 5-1 since the All-Star break with a 2.34 ERA. He allowed 14 homers before the ASG, only one since in 42 1/3 innings. That one homer came in a complete game victory over the White Sox on 7/17.
Enjoy!
The Sox finally put together some offense and good pitching against the Twins. The real joke of the series is two 1 run losses to the Twins, though the Sox outscored the Twins by 8 runs over the 3 games. All said the Twinkies think they have the division locked up, but plenty more games need to be played.