Three Philadelphia homers and a controversial call against the Diamondbacks led to a 8-5 Arizona loss last night at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix.
One of the homers, by the Phillies' Shane Victorino, went 421 feet, which officially is a bomb. It came off lefty reliever Mike Zagurski, who was called up from Triple-A Reno earlier on Tuesday.
Welcome to the bigs, Mike!
D-Backs' starting pitcher Josh Collmenter allowed six runs in losing for the second time in this young season.
Collmenter, whose successes last year were a pleasant surprise, is in the struggle mode and manager Kirk Gibson surely won't be able to ride with him in the starting rotation much longer.
Philadelphia has been off to a lousy start offensively, but even without injured superstar Ryan Howard, has too much firepower to stay down for long. The Phils should be there, in the postseason playoffs that is, come October.
Controversial play: In the seventh inning, with Philadelphia already up 4-1, Juan Pierre tapped a fly ball to short left. Jason Kubel got a decent jump, and tried to make a sliding catch.
Looked to us on replay that Kubel caught the thing, bang-bang. But the ump said no, and the bases were loaded.
Natch, Pete Orr subsequently blasted a triple, clearing the bases and giving his team an unsurmountable 7-1 lead.
As it happens, the D-Backs came back late and made a game out of it, eventually losing 8-5.
The two teams end their series this afternoon at 12:40 p.m. at Chase Field, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on controversial anti-illegal immigrant bill SB 1070.
Now there's a segue for ya!
The game (like the revolution, i.e. Gil Scott-Heron) will not be televised, but is on the radio--KTAR-FM 92.3.
If we can get enough work done between now and then, we may walk to the Yard, buy a cheapo ticket, and watch a few innings.
