There’s bounce back games and then there are bounce back games! Boy, did the Phillies turn it around. They dominated in just about every portion of the game. So where exactly do I begin? How about with the debut of former New York Met, Zach Wheeler. He was wheeling and dealing ! He went 7 innings and gave up only 5 hits, 1 run and walked two batters. Along with that he also struck out four batters in his debut. He also joins Roy Halladay, Ben Lively, and Cliff Lee as the most recent group of Phillies pitchers to go 7 or more innings in their debut. Not to mention the fact that Wheeler had 4 batters hit into double play balls. People had major questions when it came to the signing of Wheeler, but make no mistake he has the stuff. The question will be whether or not it’s the right stuff. Here’s hoping we get to see more of this Zach Wheeler in 2020.
Now i know what you’re thinking, did the Phillies have another stinker of a offensive outing? The answer is no. Hitting season was back at Citizens Bank park. Okay, it’s a tad of a exaggeration but we did indeed have a massive improvement. While we did strand 5 runners in scoring position in the first two innings, the rest of the game fared far better for the Phills. We got another home run from the newest Philly, Didi Gregorious. We also had Bryce Harper’s first hit of the season, along with a three run home run from the best catcher in baseball in J.T. Realmuto.
However, as big as all those things are they weren’t the big story of today. It was the Moose, and boy was he loose. Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, Phil Gosselin came to hit ! After hitting close to 800 in pre-season and inter-squad play, it looks like he’s picking up right where he left off. In three at bats he had 3 hits, 3 Rbi’s, 2 Home runs and a walk. Not a bad day as a DH if you ask me. Phil Gosselin is now tied with Didi Gregorious, for the most home runs through 2 games this season. He’s also batting 1.000. Exactly how you would have written it for Joe Girardi’s first win as the Phillies manager!
So with so much excellence to speak of today how was the bullpen. They were surprising good ! Tommy Hunter pitched through 1 inning and had 1 strike out, 1 walk and only surrendered 1 hit. Deolis Guerra closed out the 9th with a hit-less inning and had 2 strike outs. A much better performance than compared to the previous day. Excluding Ramos’s disaster of a debut, The Phillies Bullpen has pitched 5.1 innings, given up 4 hits, 0 runs 4 strike outs and walked only 2 batters. Could the Bullpen be better than Advertised? I’m not exactly ready to put that in writing just yet. I will say it was nice to see such a drastic improvement from out relievers. The weakness of this Phillies team has been and will continue to be it’s pitching, primarily the bullpen. However I would love nothing more to be proven wrong on that account. We head into game three tomorrow in a attempt to win out our first series of the season! Could we be seeing the start of the new and improved Vince Velasquez? We’ll find out tomorrow when the Sprint To The Finish Continues !
The Philly Blitz 