Lohse hurt in debut, but Phils win

CHICAGO - Kyle Lohse's Phillies debut lasted just 29 pitches yesterday.

The last pitch hurt the most.

Lohse, acquired Monday in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds to bolster the Phillies' rotation, had hit two batters and allowed two hits, one walk and one run. But with the bases loaded and two outs in the first inning of a 10-6 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Cubs centerfielder Jacque Jones ripped a line drive up the middle that struck Lohse square on his right forearm.

Lohse knocked down the ball, recovered, and threw to first to end the inning.

His day had ended.

"It looked like a golf ball stuck underneath the skin," said Lohse, who left the game with a bruise. "No exaggeration. It welted up right away."

Lohse entered the visitors' dugout and tried to convince pitching coach Rich Dubee that he could return to the mound. But the righthander said he noticed that the more he tried to convince Dubee that he could pitch, the bigger the welt on his arm got.

Kind of like Pinocchio.

Lohse said it eventually looked like half a baseball stuck beneath his skin.

"They weren't going to let me go out there and chance it," he said. "It's pretty frustrating. You want to go out there and have a show the first time, but we pieced it together and got a win. That's the most important thing."

Lohse left the ballpark with an elastic sleeve on his right forearm. He said he did not expect to miss his next start, Wednesday against the Florida Marlins at Citizens Bank Park, but on a team that seems to lose another player to injury every day, it almost seemed fitting that something would go awry in his first start.

"I thought I'd try to fit in," he said dryly.

Fortunately for the Phillies, the Cubs had pitching problems of their own. Lefthander Sean Marshall, who normally wears contact lenses, suffered a scratched right cornea the night before. He warmed up before the game with his glasses on but pitched without them.

He could have had trouble seeing the plate.

That would help explain how Marshall allowed nine hits and seven runs in just 22/3 innings to hand the Phillies a 7-1 lead.

"He scratched his cornea last night sleeping," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "I'm not so sure that had anything to do with [his rocky start], but it might have."

Pat Burrell, who went 3 for 4, hit a bases-empty homer to right field in the second inning. He is hitting .466 (34 for 73) with seven home runs and 23 RBIs in 25 games since his average hit a season-low .201 on July 1.

"In order for us to stay in it, everybody has to start really picking it up," Burrell said. "I think everybody knows that. It's going to be real hard for us to be down and out of it by a bunch of games and then have Chase [Utley] come back [from the disabled list]. It's tough to do the impossible, so hopefully we can get within two [games] or even better."

Jayson Werth, the team's fifth leadoff hitter in five games, went 3 for 6 with two doubles and four RBIs.

"I hit leadoff a few times in '05 in L.A.," he said. "I never had as much success as I did today. I liked it, though."

The Phillies needed those runs because the bullpen struggled. J.D. Durbin, who lost his spot in the rotation to Lohse, took over and allowed three runs in three innings. Geoff Geary yielded another run in 12/3 innings. Tom Gordon allowed a run in the eighth inning to make it 7-6.

But the Phillies scored three in the top of the ninth to pull away and earn a split in the four-game series.

"How bad is Lohse?" Werth said afterward. "I'll tell you what, he made a big play there in the first inning. He knocked the ball down with the bases loaded and got out of there. That was huge. Unfortunately, it knocked him out of the game. But, hey, sometimes you've got to make sacrifices."

If you're a Phillies fan, you just have to wonder: Who's next?