The Phillies are now one win away from their second World Series championship after thumping the Rays 10-2 in game four.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a scoreline that accurately reflected their dominance and they will head into game five full of confidence that they can wrap up the series at home.\u00c2\u00a0 If the Rays are to stop them, they will need to greatly improve their level of performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Although the first three games of the series were close affairs, this one was anything but.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Phillies’ starter Joe Blanton deserves to grab the headlines after a terrific pitching performance and a stunning home run that caught everyone by surprise, not least the player himself.\u00c2\u00a0 Blanton’s 5-12 record with the A’s in the first half of the season made many people question Pat Gillick’s decision to trade three prospects to obtain the righthander mid-way through July.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a move that provoked a great deal of sneering on the behalf of some experts who predicted that Blanton would be smashed into submission in his new homer-friendly home, but his 4-0 record and 4.20 ERA over thirteen starts helped the Phillies make the postseason and he has now played a big part in edging his team towards the big prize.<\/p>\n
Blanton’s blast went down well with the crowd in Philadelphia, but it has been the return to form of two of their established hitters that has really turned this series in their favour.\u00c2\u00a0 Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins went 2 for 19 in the opening two games, with both of the hits being delivered by the former in their game two loss.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting back home to Philly has proved a great tonic though, as they have gone 9 for 17 in games three and four.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard had looked out of sorts, being bedeviled by slow breaking balls on the outside part of the plate, but it was only a matter of time before he broke out of his slump.\u00c2\u00a0 A solo shot yesterday seemed to do the trick and he belted two more in game four, the first of which was a three-run bomb coming seconds after MLB International commentator Dave O’Brien had stated that the Phillies “haven’t had a big hit” up to that point.<\/p>\n
Two players don’t make a team, but it’s hard not to draw comparisons between the Howard-Rollins partnership and the Pena-Longoria duo.\u00c2\u00a0 While the Phillies’ pair have recovered from an early malaise, the Rays’ pair are mired in an 0 for 29 slump.\u00c2\u00a0 Longoria has been unlucky with two well-hit balls so far in this series, yet that can’t disguise the fact that he is pressing at the plate and seems to have lost the stroke that proved so devastating to the White Sox and the Red Sox in previous rounds of the postseason.\u00c2\u00a0 If one or both don’t re-find their swings quickly, this series probably won’t make it to a game six.<\/p>\n
The Rays had a bad night in virtually every way possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Andy Sonnanstine struggled by falling behind hitters and was part of yet another umpiring mistake in the first inning when the third base umpire missed Longoria’s tag on Rollins after Sonnanstine had opted to get the lead runner rather than go for the inning-ending double play.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t excuse the umpire’s bad call, but Sonnanstine made the wrong decision and didn’t deserve to get out of the jam.\u00c2\u00a0 He was extremely fortunate to only concede one run in that situation and his luck didn’t last much longer.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, the Rays’ luck was\u00c2\u00a0summed up by the normally dependable Akinori Iwamura\u00c2\u00a0being charged with two errors, the second\u00c2\u00a0of which was\u00c2\u00a0a bit harsh on the Japanese star.\u00c2\u00a0 The solo home runs by Carl Crawford and Eric Hinske, the latter having only just been added to the roster in place of the injured Cliff Floyd, were the only bright spots on an otherwise miserable night.<\/p>\n
However, it was far from miserable for the Phillies.\u00c2\u00a0 They are now in the perfect spot: a 3-1 lead with Cole Hamels pitching a potential series-clinching game five at Citizens Bank Park.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rays need to recover from a poor game four and to break Hamels’ run of excellent postseason starts if they are to take this series back to Florida.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s going to be a tall order, even though the Rays have already proved they have the stomach for a fight.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
That fighting spirit will be put to the test tonight.\u00c2\u00a0 The Phillies are on the verge of clinching the World Series in front of their home crowd and opportunities like this don’t come along too often.\u00c2\u00a0 Tune into Five from 00.30 tonight to see if the Phillies are able to take advantage or whether the Rays can begin an incredible comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Phillies are now one win away from their second World Series championship after thumping the Rays 10-2 in game four.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a scoreline that accurately reflected their dominance and they will head into game five full of confidence that they can wrap up the series at home.\u00c2\u00a0 If the Rays are to stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,65],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7307,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/7307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}