Philadelphia Phillies lose to Los Angeles Dodgers 3-5 as Jacob Diekman disappoints – MLB Update
Relief pitcher Jacob Diekman gives up a two-run homer in the 12th inning as the Philadelphia Phillies lose to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-5 in the third game of the three match series on July 18, 2012 at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California.
Phillies' starter Cliff Lee becomes victim of another day of poor performance by the offence.
The eight innings he tossed were impeccable, excluding just the one in which he leaked one run.
Only thing that let Lee down on Wednesday were two runs given up by the closer Jonathan Papelbon and a little support coming off from the batters.
The game took interesting twists and turns toward its completion. Until the end of the ninth, the score was level. Therefore, the decision was to be made in the 10th.
As soon as the Phillies’ right-fielder Hunter Pence singled to left and brought two runs in the top of the 10th, one could easily write the Dodgers off. However, much to the excitement of the fans, the latter managed to tie the game again.
This called for another inning to be played as both teams remained scoreless.
Hence, they appeared in one more inning, which finally decided the victor.
In the last inning, reliever Diekman proved the Phillies’ undoing as he allowed a walk-off homer to the Dodgers’ slugger Matt Kemp.
Furthermore, Papelbon did the closing job for Philadelphia. Far from living up to his reputation as a reliable closer, he leaked two runs at such a crucial juncture of the game. He admits that this was one of those games that he will rather like to forget
about.
"It's tough. It's one of those outings where you really can't do very much about it," Papelbon said. "I feel like I made the pitches I wanted to make. But there were swinging bunts and bloop hits and stuff like that. It's just part of the game. But we've
got to stay positive and look at the bigger picture and realize that we came out of the All-Star break taking two series on the road.”
Despite the loss, the Phillies have looked improved in the series as they were terrific in the last two games.
Philadelphia has a lot of positive that they can take from this series in to their next.
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