Phillies-Astros: Phils Win Second Consecutive Series with Offense

Poor performances from Brandon Backe and other Houston Astros pitchers helped the Philadelphia Phillies win their second consecutive series with a 10-2 victory in the rubber game of the series.

Brett Myers got the win for the Phillies, while Backe took the loss for Houston.

The Phillies offense took advantage of Backe, who struggled with the most basic aspects of pitching.

Backe pitched only three plus innings while allowing six runs on ten hits, as he labored throwing 61 pitches over his outing. Backe lacked command of his fastball and was unable to get any of his pitches down in the strike zone consistently.

This allowed Phillies hitters to sit on his curveball and off-speed pitches. Once they were up in the zone, they were hit hard.

Backe showed lack of command in his prior outing against the Marlins in which he walked five in five innings of work. Backe only walked two on Thursday afternoon, but was around the plate too much and allowed the Phillies hitters to get comfortable swings off the thin right hander.

The Phils jumped to an early 3-0 lead, and Myers never looked back. Myers allowed only one run on five hits and one walk over his seven innings of work. He has shown renewed passion in his last two starts on this homestand after getting hit around for the first week of the season.

Myers needs to sustain this kind of a performance over the whole season for the Phillies to be successful.

The Phils offense continued to build on their 6-0 lead after Backe’s early shower on getaway day, adding two more against Oscar Villarreal and Jose Valverde. Valverde picked up the blown save and the loss on Tuesday night and looked as bad in the eighth inning on Thursday as he did on Tuesday night’s ill-faded appearance.

The Phils hit four homeruns in the game and six of the Phillies starters had multiple hits en route to the impressive victory. Chris Coste had a big game behind the plate, going 4-for-5 with two singles, a double, a two-run homer, and three runs batted in. 

The win gave the Phils their second consecutive series victory. They start a three game weekend series against the Mets on Friday.

After failing to win any of their first three series, the Phils have used the last two series victories to even their record at 8-8 and stay right in the middle of the NL East race.