Philadelphia Phillies defeat San Diego Padres 4-2 to sweep series – MLB Update
The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Diego Padres 4-2 to sweep the series on Sunday, April 24 at Petco Park, San Diego.
Things weren’t looking too good for the Padres as they were coming out to play their third game against Philadelphia. They couldn’t manage a single hit against the Phillies in their last two games as Philadelphia’s pitchers unleashed their entire throwing
prowess on the team.
The game started off with Placido Polanco hitting a single against Chad Qualls which was sacrificed by Shane Victorino who went over to the third base when he was batting against Peter Orr’s groundout.
The manager for the Padres, Bud Black decided to intentionally walk Jimmy Rollins before Ryan Howard came out so that they could bring in Cory Luebke to go against the left handed slugger. The move obviously didn’t come as a surprise to Howard who had successfully
managed to strike-out everyone who faced him in his previous four at-bats. The intentional walking of Rollins before the eleventh inning was a clever move and made sense.
"With the way that the game was going, no, I guess you're not surprised they'd go to the bullpen and bring in a lefty in that situation," Howard said.
Ryan responded by belting out a hit that gave the Phillies two runs which went to the opposite side of left-field. Ryan Ludwick tried to get the ball to come in contact with his glove but failed. That hit coupled with Polanco’s hit gave the team a total
of four runs which marked the victory for the Phillies against the Padres’s two runs.
Charlie Manuel was obviously proud of the way Howard handled the situation and said, "I think he was motivated, yeah. He rose to the occasion. That's how you handle it,"
Ludwick felt grief over not being able to catch the ball that could have potentially saved his team from their third loss. "It was a long run," Ludwick said. "That corner is kind of tricky. I actually ran to the spot where I thought the ball was going when
it came off his bat. It was a long run and a felt I had a good read on it. When I looked at the replay I was an inch away."
The Phillies will be up against the Arizona Diamondbacks, who will have the home field advantage. Only time will tell if Philadelphia’s pitchers will be able to work their magic against the Diamondbacks just as well.
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