Boston Red Sox Lose Game One Against Philadelphia Phillies

Every baseball season, the matchup of the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies has me torn as to which team I root for. My hometown team, the Phillies, or the team that I've spent my life rooting for, the Red Sox.

On paper at the beginning of this series, I thought that the Phillies had a slight edge over the Red Sox based on overall health of each lineup, and the first game pitching matchup of Cole Hamels against Bartolo Colon.

Well, right out of the gates, we saw that the Phillies clearly had the edge, by clubbing two home runs off of Colon in the bottom of the first inning. The offense was supplied by Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard.

On the contrary, Cole Hamels allowed just a double to Dustin Pedroia, and struck out two in his first inning of work.

Then, in the bottom of the third inning, Colon served up a second Ryan Howard home run into the left field seats.

However, the main difference between Colon and Hamels in this game was all control. Colon was not hitting his spots, and at times looked like he thought he still had a high 90s fastball. Colon was removed after the fourth inning due to reported back stiffness.

Hamels was hitting the spots the Carlos Ruiz gave him, with a brief slip up in the top of the fifth inning were he allowed back to back home runs to Dustin Pedroia and Phillies-fan-favorite J.D. Drew.

The tide turned back in the Phillies favor in the bottom of the sixth, as struggling reliever Mike Timlin continued to have difficulty locating his pitches, and as a result got hit around while only being able to retire two hitters. Timlin gave up four runs and another two baserunners before being replaced by David Aardsma, who induced an inning-ending ground out.

Other than that little rough patch in the top of the fifth, Cole Hamels continued the groove he had been in his past two starts, by retiring the leadoff hitter in each of his seven full innings, a streak that was snapped by his last batter J.D. Drew who walked to lead off the eighth.

Nevertheless, the lead off walk did not do much for the Red Sox, as Chad Durbin induced a double play that retired J.D. Drew and Manny Ramirez. Durbin then proceeded to force Mike Lowell to pop up to Jimmy Rollins.

The Phillies won game one of the series 8-2 after Chad Durbin struck out Alex Cora in the top of the ninth.

The primary reason the Phillies were able to win was that their hitters were able to execute on the lack of execution by the Red Sox pitching staff. Colon occasionally showed signs of control against the bottom of the lineup, Timlin showed absolutely no signs of execution, and Okajima showed some signs of a lack of control.

The Red Sox still have a chance to win the series, with young stars Jon Lester and Justin Masterson pitching the remaining two games of the series against Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick respectively.

Game two starts tomorrow night at 7:05.