Phillies' hitting, Zach Eflin's pitching lead to rout of Rockies
DENVER - The Phillies packed their bags Sunday afternoon as hip-hop music blared from a sound system in the center of the visiting clubhouse at Coors Field. Their 10-3 win over Colorado was the team's 10th win in 13 games.
DENVER - The Phillies packed their bags Sunday afternoon as hip-hop music blared from a sound system in the center of the visiting clubhouse at Coors Field. Their 10-3 win over Colorado was the team's 10th win in 13 games.
They will enter the all-star break with 13 more wins than they had at the break last season. It is the best improvement in baseball. Sunday provided one last celebration before a young team that began the season with zero expectations goes its separate ways for the four-day all-star break.
"We're winning. Winning's fun," catcher Cameron Rupp said. "I know we're not .500, but we hit a stretch in the middle of May and early June where we were playing the best teams back to back to back. They did what they were supposed to do to us. They beat us. But we never quit. We never laid down and said 'We blew our wad. That's what we're going to be.' We turned it around."
Rupp powered the Phillies offense, which scored its most runs in nearly three weeks. He blasted a 465-foot homer in the seventh inning, which ranked as the team's longest homer of the season until Maikel Franco rocked a 471-foot shot in the eighth. Franco enters the break with a 10-game hitting streak and is batting .450 (18 for 40) over that stretch. His blast is the longest homer by a Phillies player since Ryan Howard hit a 475-foot homer in September of 2011.
"They all count the same," Rupp said. "They were both good ones."
The offensive surge aided Zach Eflin, who allowed just two runs over six innings. The righthander settled in after throwing 15 balls in the first inning to throw just 12 over the next five innings. He struck out three batters and walked two as he showed good command of his fastball. Eflin limited the damage despite allowing seven hits, three of which were for extra bases.
The 22-year-old is almost four weeks removed from being rocked in his major-league debut. That afternoon in Toronto could not have gone worse as Eflin allowed eight earned runs in less than three innings. And his reaction to that outing could not have been better. Eflin has a 2.20 ERA in his five starts since his debut.
"You can't live in the past," Eflin said. "You always have to have your head high, your chin up, and a positive attitude. I learn after every outing and I learned a lot after that one. I've done a good job of keeping my ball down and throwing my pitches for strikes and keeping the hitters guessing."
Pete Mackanin deadpanned after the game that the team's recent run has been a result of the manager's "unbelievable decisions." He then credited the success to the team's offensive emergence. The Phillies entered Sunday with a major-league lead in OPS (.868), batting average (.307), slugging percentage (.515), and hits (198) since June 21.
Mackanin, who is spending his first full season as a manager, entered the season with the goal of his team finishing with a .500 record. That goal is now in striking distance and as the music blared in the clubhouse, Mackanin prepared for a flight back to Philadelphia. The second half, he said, will provide his team the chance to prove if their play is for real or is just a mirage.
"I choose to believe that we're going to win a lot more games this second half than we did the first half," Mackanin said.
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