The 25-23 Philadelphia Phillies either should adopt a new home field or ask Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig if Philadelphia can play a few more series at the 25-22 St. Louis Cardinals.
At least to end this week Philadelphia has made Busch Stadium home looking far more comfortable than St. L who looked shell-shocked today after dumping tight-knit affairs the first two days. The Phillies piled in the first run on 3-3 Jaime Garcia with a 3.78 ERA during the top of the fourth with Shane Victorino's RBI-double. Two innings later John Mayberry Jr.'s two-run double and Freddy Galvis' groundout made it 4-0 Philadelphia.
The Cards struggled versus 0-4 Kyle Kendrick with a 4.10 ERA only getting seven hits and no runs in on him during nine innings. Tyler Greene doubled for St. Louis' only extra base hit. David Freese was 2-for-3 to boot, but no Cardinals were able to draw walks.
3-5 Adam Wainwright with a 4.78 ERA has the arduous task of getting St. L off the schnide on Sunday. All five of Wainwright's May appearances have been decisions including a complete-game shutout of the 17-31 San Diego Padres on May 22 to win 4-0. The Atlanta Braves beat Wainwright 7-2 and the 21-24 Pittsburgh Pirates fell 10-7, but both squads combined to pour in nine runs during 11.1 innings. Also at Busch the 15-30 Chicago Cubs and 25-20 Cincinnati Reds rocked in 12 runs during eight innings to hand Wainwright two losses.
Philadelphia is 41-for-157 with 11 RBIs, three each from Mike Fontenot and Victorino, on Wainwright. In 2010 Wainwright faced off against the Phillies twice. Both times Philadelphia won 2-1 and 2-0 with Wainwright leaving with stout no-decisions.
The Phillies' 4-4 Roy Halladay with a 3.58 ERA goes in the series finale having taken a decision eight of 10 starts this year. At Chicago, Pittsburgh and the 24-23 San Francisco Giants Halladay conceded five runs during 24 innings of three wins. SD piled in two runs during seven innings to beat Halladay 5-1 on April 21 while Atlanta snapped in eight runs during 5.1 innings at Turner Field to edge Philadelphia 15-13.
Basically Halladay has to go eight innings to pick up a win. If not the Cards, who are 28-for-98 with a dozen RBIs on Halladay. could beat him or at least get a no-decision out of the Phillies' ace. Carlos Beltran is 14-for-42 with a double, two home runs and 10 RBIs on Halladay who went eight innings twice in October versus St. Louis. Both games were at Philadelphia with the Cardinals eking by the Phillies 1-0 about a week after breaking in three runs during eight innings off of Halladay in an 11-6 loss. Go figure Halladay's better performance ended in a loss. On June 21 at Busch Stadium Halliday won 10-2 by seeing one run crawl in on him during six innings. I'm taking Philadelphia to complete the rare four-game road sweep in St. L.
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