Yesterday, I wrote a blog post detailing how excellent the Phillies were in their four-game sweep of the San Diego Padres this past weekend. Then, they come out to Arizona and drop the ball in a 4-0 loss to the Diamondbacks. What happened?
↵Two words: Ian Kennedy. The young ace pitched an amazing game against a playoff-caliber team, giving up only three hits and fanning ten Phillies batters in front of a crowd of 19,586.
↵Kennedy was quick and worked the counts against Philadelphia. His only mistake of the evening, a balk, didn't come back to haunt him.
↵Cliff Lee pitched well for Philadelphia, no doubt: he threw seven innings and struck out 12 D-backs. Unfortunately for him, he made a few location mistakes against Chris Young and Gerardo Parra, who hit some massive home runs off the lefthander.
↵After Arizona was swept out of New York by the Mets and Philadelphia showed off in San Diego, this series was looking to be a bad one for the Diamondbacks. However, this team has proven time and time again that they will defend the home field advantage.
↵Tonight, Roy Oswalt toes the rubber against Daniel Hudson, who is 0-4 on the young season. The lack of run support for Hudson has been an issue in 2011, and the D-backs will need to jump on Oswalt early on to have a chance in tonight's game.