NewsPhillies unable to come up clutch in loss
Missed opportunity early haunts club; Blanton strikes out 10
By Todd Zolecki / MLB.com
06/25/09 12:16 AM ET
ST. PETERSBURG -- The enduring Pat Burrell image is the carriage and the Clydesdales.It is the World Series championship parade.
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It still is strange to see Burrell in a Tampa Bay Rays uniform. He signed with the Rays over the winter after the Phillies signed Raul Ibanez to take his place in left field. So it seemed even stranger to see Burrell hit a two-run home run to left field against his former team in the second inning of a 7-1 victory Wednesday at Tropicana Field.
"It's fun because I know the team and everything like that," said Burrell, who played with the Phillies from 2000-08. "But more importantly for me, it's just being back on the field and being able to contribute and help us win. I think that's No. 1. It's fun to compete against the team you were on for a long time, too."
Burrell's move to Tampa Bay has not been particularly sweet. He is hitting just .235 with two home runs and 21 RBIs. He spent time on the disabled list with a strained neck.
"Hopefully, it gets him straightened out," Jimmy Rollins said. "Hit a ball like that, and that swing sometimes you can take it and carry it for a while. We've seen him take that swing and carry it for a long time. Hopefully, he's able to turn it around after tomorrow."
The Phillies scored their only run in the seventh inning, when Jayson Werth hit a solo home run to right field against Rays right-hander Matt Garza.
It cut Tampa Bay's lead to 2-1.
But Philadelphia was unable to capitalize on its best chance to score in the fourth inning, when Garza walked Shane Victorino, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard on 17 pitches to load the bases with nobody out.
Garza seemed to be losing his cool.
He appeared on the brink of blowing up.
But Werth swung at a first-pitch fastball and hit a ground ball to Rays third baseman Evan Longoria.
Longoria scooped up the ball and threw to catcher Dioner Navarro for the first out. Navarro then threw to first to get Werth for the double play. Matt Stairs followed Werth and struck out swinging to end the inning.
The first-pitch swing seemed out of character for Werth. He leads the National League with 4.48 pitches per plate appearance. The only player in the Majors who sees more pitches is Boston first baseman Kevin Youkilis (4.53).
"The thing that I was thinking about is that he just walked the bases loaded," Werth said. "You've got two lefties behind me [Stairs and Greg Dobbs], so he's going to try to get ahead. He's going to try to get ahead with the fastball, and it's probably going to be in. At least I was looking in. I got the pitch that I was looking for. The location. I just beat it into the ground.
"Would I do it again? Yeah, probably. I'd probably try to put a better swing on it. I went and looked at it [on video]. It wasn't that it was a bad swing. It was a good pitch. It was a strike. It's what I was looking for. He beat me. I thought about it all game, and I really think if I had the same opportunity, I would have done it again."
But any thoughts of a comeback vanished in the eighth, when the Rays scored five runs to take the six-run lead. Tampa Bay had a runner on first with two outs -- thanks to Stairs throwing out B.J. Upton at the plate -- when left-hander J.C. Romero hit Carlos Pena with a pitch and walked Ben Zobrist to load the bases.
Burrell then hit a slow roller up the middle off Chan Ho Park to Rollins.
Rollins surprisingly flipped the ball to Utley, but Zobrist hustled to second and beat the throw.
"Usually, I just pick up and go to first automatically -- just because the ball is hit soft towards the middle and I'm over on the pull side," Rollins said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I really don't know. It's an automatic play to go to first. ... Every once in a while, those plays happen. And when it happens, it's like, 'Gosh, darn it.'"
The inning eroded from there, as four more runs scored, erasing a good night from Phillies right-hander Joe Blanton, who allowed six hits, two runs and two walks in seven-plus innings. Blanton also struck out 10.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was asked afterward about Burrell's night.
"I said hello to him," Manuel said. "If he starts hitting us like this, I'll never say hello to him. He plays the game, too. He's got to make a living, too. If he can do it, fine. It's up to us to get him out."
Philadelphia gets one last shot to get him out in the series finale Thursday night.
Todd Zolecki is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
