Philadelphia Phillies at Pittsburgh Pirates 1994 06 22 great finish

Philadelphia Phillies at Pittsburgh Pirates 1994 06 22 great finish

against the Pittsburgh Pirates. And it’s a perfect night for baseball. It’s still on the warm side here in Pittsburgh for sure, but the humidity has left the air. Good evening everyone. I’m Andy Muster with Kent Tulvi. Take as I say the end of the road trip. Phillies haven’t won many road trips this year. They did take two out of three in St. Louis, but they got a shot to win this trip. Yeah, win tonight’s ball game. It’ll be a winning road trip and, you know, a momentum builder. We talked earlier about the the part of the schedule that’s coming up after the Phillies get past this next stand with the Atlanta Braves. really a pretty soft spot of the schedule for him in a chance if they start playing good baseball to make some move on the National League East. And of course, you have to stay over 500 for anybody to take you seriously, unless of course you’re in the AL West. And the Phillies need this win tonight to get back over the 500 mark. They’re a dead even 500 coming in. So, it’s going to be a big night for the Phillies and they’ll be up against the poised young right-hander John Lever. David West makes his return to the starting rotation in this one for the Phillies tonight. We’ll be back with the starting lineups for tonight’s Phillies Buckos game in just a moment. Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel is brought to you by Budweiser Beachwood Age for a crisp, clean classic taste. The yellow pages, nine out of 10 people use the genuine Bell Atlantic yellow pages. CocaCola, always a hit, always CocaCola. Texico, new clean system 3 gasoline from Texico. Give us 60 days and watch what can happen. Melon PSF as the official bank of the Phillies. The Pennsylvania Lottery. Lottery proceeds benefit older Pennians. Independence Blue Cross. Pennsylvania Blue Shield. For 56 years, the health insurance company you can lean on. Gorgeous night for a ball game here in Pittsburgh as the Phillies conclude what turns out to be an eight-game road trip. They’ve won four and lost three on the trip so far after that sweep up in Montreal, which was really the key part of the trip. And tonight they go against John Leieber. Here’s the Phils lineup tonight. Billy Hatcher leads off. He’s in center. Mickey Morendini the second baseman. Ricky Jordan at first. Darren Dalton the catcher. Jim Eisen Reich and right. Mil Thompson and left. Kevin Stalker the shortstop. Tom Quinnland at third base. And David West on the mound. Defensively for the Pirates this evening, it is Brian Hunter at first base, Carlos Garcia plays second, Jay Bell at short, and Jeff King at third. Lloyd McClennon gets the start in left field tonight with Al Martin in center. Orlando Merrced plays right. Don Slaugh does the catching and on the mound 6’3 in 220 lb right-hander John Lever. Well, he’s only 24 years of age, Tee, but he’s got the poise of a guy who’s been around a whole lot longer and he doesn’t walk people. First pitch of the ball game, the Hatcher is in for a strike. Hatch doing a great job filling in for Lenny Dyster. He’s batted safely in six straight and now he’s hitting at 375 for the year. Hard hit ground ball but right to Jay Bell. Bell makes the play. Hatcher is out. Speaking of Lenny Dystra, he is not at the ball game tonight. Lenny was sent home. He had abdominal pains during the night. He was taken to a local hospital and then was uh probably at this very moment is on his way back to Philadelphia where Dr. Philip Maroon will hopefully examine him tomorrow. Mickey Morendini bats in the two-hole tonight, batting at 275, no homers, nine runs batted in. Mickey had a hit off Liber in that game in Philadelphia. Dystra led off that ball game with a walk and scored on a Dave Holland’s ground out and that was the only run that Liieber gave up in that ball game and he did a terrific job. He pitched six innings, gave up five hits in just that one run, walked two, struck out four. Liieber, a sinker slider type pitcher, throws a lot of hard stuff, not too much off speed stuff. Has a change up, but you won’t see too many of them, but he usually works ahead in the count. Jerry Meals, a young umpire, is calling the balls and strikes tonight. And it’s one and two now on Morendini. There’s Jerry Meals. just missed. That LA San Diego game is over now. The Padres’s hung on to win it 7 to6. That is a final and Colorado has added to their lead. They’re now ahead of Houston 14-2 in the eighth inning. Hard hit. Bell can’t get that one. Morendini’s got a hit. Martin goes over to close off the gap and make sure it stays as a single. As I mentioned, Liieber with the sinker slider combination. And the slider is a hard, tight slider, so everything’s going to be pretty much getting up there at the same speed. It’s just a matter of the Philly hitters being able to determine, you know, if the ball is sinking and running into him or sliding and running away. Mickey did a nice job there staying with the fast ball and driving it up the middle. Believe we announced Ricky Jordan as the first baseman. But that sure looks like John Krook. That’s who I hit. Now you’re trying to manage. No, I just copied it off the I copied it off the wall in the dugout. Crook hitting at 310. Two homers, 20 runs batted in. Get out the white out, Twood. It’s time to make the alterations. Runner at first and one out. Kuck chases one. Two balls and a strike on John. John did not play in last night’s ball game. Good to see him back in there. Of course, lately his attack has been to play alternate games anyway. And until he gets himself in real good physical condition, but he played a whole string of ball games simply because Jordan had a bad wheel. Morendini three stolen bases. He’s been caught stealing three times. That game where Liieber broke in in Philadelphia, his parents were in the stands. His fiance was in the stands, his brother was there. Did he have nervousness? Well, if he did, it didn’t show. Morendini fakes going. Krux swings through a pitch. One and two. B. B is called and Morandini takes second base. Did Balk and Bob do it? Did not see who called it, but it was definitely a B. More and Deini moves down. So therefore, no pitch to Krook. Take the count back. Take a look and see what Liieber does here. He comes to stop. Well, didn’t see anything there. Somebody did though. In that case, it must have been B and Bob. In any case, Morendini at second base now with one out. the bottom line. There’s that hard slider. Liers down and into Cru. Talking to Pirate broadcaster Steve Blass, he was telling me what makes Liber effective is the fact that all of his pitches move. Even if he gets behind in the count and has to throw you a pitch that you’re looking on, the fast ball moves, the slider’s good and sharp and tight. So even though he gets in the hole and has to throw you what you’re looking for, not always that easy to hit. Other pitchers that get behind uh you know pretty much hitters can handle them pretty well, but Lever with a good movement. A little more difficult. Truck chases a high hard one there. Now Jim Leland is coming out. We have another B. Another B. And Leland is really upset. He’s going to Bob Davidson, the third base umpire. Leland and Balk and Bob are going to have it out. You can book it. I think just by the gesture that Davidson made right there, what he’s saying is is that Leber is stopping with his hands up by his chin and then again dropping him to the belt and making a second stop. And the pitcher has to come to a complete stop, but it has to be one stop. You saw Davidson right there put up to two fingers, meaning he’s stopping twice. Bob Davidson always wanted to look for all the little small things, you know, when he’s checking out a pitcher. And that’s exactly what he’s saying. Liieber is stopping his hands up by his chin the first time and then starting them again, dropping them to the belt, stopping again, only allowed one stop. Davidson’s going to make sure that that’s enforced and uh Mr. Leland, I’m sure, is going to discuss this for a while. So, Jimmy happy about this. You love to see the other manager get excited about something. That’s part of the fun of it all. Well, not only that, but there’s been two two strikes now on Corrupt that have been erased. John’s getting the bonus at bat right now. Here we’ll see right here with Liieber have the one stop there at the chin and then he drops him to the waist for the second stop. That’s what Davidson is calling the buck right there. Two stops, one by the chin, one at the belt. Jim Leland not very happy, but on his way back to the dugout for Gocei amused. Leieber had been called on only one bulk in 47 innings prior to this. The infield for the Pirates is in as Kuck fouls back another one. The count on John is one and two. He got away as you say with two strikes. And there’s the drawn in infield as the Pirates try to prevent the Phillies from getting the early run off Liieber. We mentioned that the Phillies got a first inning run off Liieber in Philadelphia and then he gave up nothing else the rest of the way. It’s over for a strike and Krook is called out. That’s a probably the toughest strike out Liieber’s ever recorded. Had to throw about six strikes to get this one earlier. The the slider inside this time the tailing fastball. We talked about that movement. Catches the outside corner according to Jerry Meals. John does not agree. Thought that pitch was outside. It was definitely outside by the time slot caught it. Been running away from the left-handed hitter with that tailing fastball. In steps Darren Dalton, the Philly’s RBI leader with 49. He is ninth best in the league. And he’s been hitting a lot lately. So his average up at 297 with two outs. Pirate infield drops back. Dalton went 0 for three facing Liber in Philadelphia on May 15th. Basketball away, two balls and no strikes. Dalton hot 10 for his last 17 over the last four games. We thought sure he was going to have the day off yesterday, but when Monday’s game was officially rained out after just four innings, why he was right back in the lineup last night strike two and one. Well, the pitch combination Liber has the running fast and the slider, you’re going to see the majority of the fast balls to these left-handers on the outside part of the plate running away from him and then that hard biting slider that we saw to croc on the inside part. away. It’s three balls in one strike. Eisenrik on deck. Lieber does not walk many, that’s for sure. 13 walks in 47 innings coming in. Dalton hits the ball in the air to left field and hits it well. Mlendon is back, but he has room. It looks like he does on the track for the final out of the inning. No runs, one hit, a couple of blocks and one man left on base at the end of a half inning. Phillies nothing and the Pirates coming up. There’s the Pirates lineup. Carlos Garcia leads off. He’s the second baseman. Followed by shortstop Jay Bell. Third baseman Jeff King. The cleanup hitter is Brian Hunter, the first baseman. Orlando Merced the right fieler. Lloyd McClendon in left field. Al Martin plays center field. Don Slots the catcher. and pitcher John Lee. Defensively, the Phillies have John Krook at first base. Mickey Morendini is playing second, Kevin Stalker at short, and Tom Quinnland plays third this evening. Milt Thompson is in left with Billy Hatcher subbing for Lenny Dystra in center. Jim Eisenrike is in right field. Darren Dalton does the catching and on the mound, 29-year-old left-hander David West. David missed his last scheduled start, which was his past Sunday in Montreal when he had those pulled rib cage muscles that we were talking about. His last start was eight days ago on Monday, June 13th against the Mets at Sheay. And in that game, he was a losing pitcher in a 4-3 Philly loss. He pitched five innings in that ball game and gave up four hits, two runs, walked three, and struck out five. You know, it’s amazing the the transformation that he’s made from reliever to starter this year. The only difference being the walks. He’s cut down enormously on the amount of walks the league hitting a 195 average against David West. And you know that’d be good enough to lead the league had he faced enough batters, which he hasn’t. And left-handers are hitting only 118 off him. So no wonder that Jimmy Leland didn’t want to put too many of them in the lineup tonight. Martin and uh and Merrced being the only two. Garcia hitting at 267. Three homers, 17 RBI’s for Carlos. Curveball for a strike. And what we want to watch early with David West is how how he’s throwing the ball and, you know, look for any indications that those rib cage muscles are bothering him. so far seems to be throwing the ball fairly smoothly. Scoots on through. It’s a base hit for Garcia. So, the Pittsburgh Pirates start with a single to center field. Garcia has stolen 10 bases in 14 tries. How do you rate West at holding runners aboard, T? Just average. Um, you know what he does do well is he varies his move so that sometimes he gets rid of the ball a little quicker, sometimes holds it a little longer. Doesn’t allow the base runner to know exactly when he is going to make that move to the plate. But, you know, just probably an average move, I guess I would rate it as far as his delivery to home plate. Jay Bell hitting at 237. He’s hit into a lot of double plays, 10 of them to rank fourth in the league in that dubious category. And the Phillies look for one right here. Bell has not hit much this year, but he has picked up the pace of late, batting .358 over the last 14 games. Yeah, the Pirates having a lot of trouble early this year because their two veteran players, Jay Bell hitting second, Andy Vanlike hitting third, were not producing at all offensively. Jim Leland’s younger ball players were doing a pretty good job of getting on base and doing, you know, what he expected of them, but his veteran players were not producing and therefore his run production was way down. And of course, the Pirates without a whole lot of long ball punch uh last night. We mentioned the home run in the first inning, the three-run shot. And that was the first three-run home run that the Pirates had hit all year long. So, it Dave Clark in the what the 67th or 68th game hits the first three-run homer of the season. So, the Pirates have to string base hits together to put a run on the board. And when you have your three and four hitters and your two veteran guys not getting the job done, or excuse me, your two and three hitters, Bell and Van Slike, not getting the job done, runs become few and far between. Speaking of Andy Vanlike, we have not seen him in this series. He has a stiff neck which has sidelined him for all three games. Curveball the bell and it just missed. two balls and two strikes. Prior to getting four in the first inning last night, the Pirates hadn’t scored since a week ago Saturday in the first inning. During that time, they didn’t even have a hit in the first inning. So, at least Garcia has produced a hit here in the first tonight. Dalton battles that one. Did he swing at it? He did. And Bell strikes out. Appeal made to the first base umpire, Jerry Davis, who says he swung. Jim Leland’s not having a whole lot of luck right now in the early part of this ball game with the umpires. Jimmy saying, “Is this a home game or what?” I mean, got two blocks by the third base umpire and a appeal to first base. So far, all three have gone against him. Here’s the breaking ball by West. Well out of the strike zone, never even close. Bell checks the swing. The appeal goes down. Jerry Davis says, “Yes, he did.” Which is good enough for us. Now Garcia goes as King sends a high popup just back of the infield. Hatcher coming on. He makes the catch and King is retired on one pitch. That’s the second out of the inning. Garcia returns easily to first and Brian Hunter will come up. Well, he leads the club in RBI’s even though he wasn’t playing regularly at the beginning of the year, but his total of 31 is really way down there. But the RBI leader of the Buckos and batting at 268 with six long balls. Started out the beginning of the year, Jeff King was the number four hitter, but uh at this point in the season, only two home runs. Jim Leland trying to get a little bit of pop in that four spot has moved Hunter in there. He does have six. The Pirate home run leaders are Jay Bell and Al Martin with seven each. This ball may be in play. Looks like it is. Cru coming over and that takes care of the inning. Hunter fouls out to Krook. No runs, one hit and one left. At the end of an inning tonight, this ball game is scoreless. A week from this afternoon, the Phillies have a business person special against the Florida Marlins. Third of six fun in the sun midday midweek baseball games at the vet. Perfect excuse to leave work early. Compliments of Melon PSFS. The number for your tickets 4631000. And we’ll see you next Wednesday afternoon. Following which the Phillies hop on a plane and head to the west coast for 11 games. We’re scoreless as Jim Eisen leads off the second for the Phillies. Is fouls one down the left field side. NY in a little bit of a slump right now if you can call 0 for 10 a slump and that is for him because he is such an amazingly steady hitter. He is he’s been consistent since the first day of spring training. I mean you don’t you know you can include spring training in that. He just comes out and he’s just an everyday solid performer and that’s the way he played last year. You know nothing spectacular. Doesn’t have one of those games where he’s got you know four hits and seven RBI’s or something but every day he’s going to be there and he’s going to be a contributor. Almost a mistake proof player too. He rarely commits an error and rarely misses a cut off man. Just one of those guys that knows how to play the game. Solid fundamental player with some pretty good ability. Atlanta has jumped ahead of the Mets two to nothing on a solo home. Two solo home runs. Roberto Kelly and Jeff Blowser hit them. You’ll be seeing those Braves on Friday night. Liieber picks up his second strikeout. He’s got good movement on his ball, doesn’t he? He does. This is a slider down and in. And not only good movement, it’s that tight sharp breaking slider, but good location puts it right down on the knees on the inside part of the plate. That’s when I talked to Steve Blast what he kept saying over and over again about Liber slider is he said it’s not that big round slider that you see a lot of times. It’s that good sharp late breaker that’s hard to follow for the hitter. Mil Thompson at 290. Shallow left field and the shorts stop bell goes back to make the play. Looked like it might be a Texas League single. Well, I don’t think Mlendum is going to get it, but Bell did. Two outs. Liieber’s making it took look too easy so far. Te Well, and another thing that I was told about Liieber and is shown already in this ball game is that he will pitch on both sides of the plate. You know, you can’t really decide, okay, most of the pitchers are going to be away and I’m just going to look out there. You know, he will pitch in and out with both the fast ball and the slider. Although against the left-handed hitters, the fast ball will dominantly be away and the slider dominantly in. Kevin Stalker batting at 258. He was in the number two hole last night for the first time in his career. He did a good job there. Stalker hitting 417 lifetime against Pittsburgh. Talk about steady ball player. Stock really is in that same category except in his case he’s so much younger that uh you know maybe in in some ways it’s even more impressive because he’s learned the game and taken it seriously right from the get-go. Well, we noticed right away when Stalker came to the big leagues, you know, he has a solid fundamentals and he has a good head for the game. He understands and can comprehend what’s going on around him and why things are happening and makes adjustments before a lot of other players would because, you know, he pays attention and logs all that information away. Jim Fosce used the term he has good field presence. I like that term. It’s good a description as any. He’s two and two on stock. What that means is he knows what he’s doing, right? And I think we have to realize, Jimmy, with Johnny Padres’s pitching coach, it Stalker is just now fully recovering from that wrist operation. And it’s taken him a while to get his baseball seal legs back, so to speak. Stalker facing Leieber for the first time. Garcia gets over, makes the play. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Phillies go in order. We move to the bottom of the second in a scoreless game. Philly’s Dream Week is a fun-filled, magical week in Clearwater when you live, learn, play, and laugh with Larry Boa, Dave Cash, Greg Lazinski, and many more stars of the Philly’s past. For details, call 2159381200. That’s 2159381200. What a way to live a dream. You can call right now. Here we go to the bottom of the second with Orlando Merrced leading off. One of the only two left-handed batters in the lineup for Lookout. Ball boy made a play on that and uh got short hopped to the backhand and put him on his seat of his pants. He looked like a third baseman on that play, didn’t he? Orlando hitting at 303. Let’s think about getting in front of that. Then he bailed out at the last second. Wise decision. Originally Merrced was a switch hitter but he gave it up. Was he that bad right-handed tee? I didn’t think he was. You know he obviously hit more left-handed and right-handed but I think the you know the determining factor was that he has not had that much of a problem hitting against left-handers from the left side. So felt that you know just by staying on the same side of the plate more consistency to you know one stroke just keep it together rather than trying to switch back and forth. But he was not that bad of a hitter right-handed. hits a ground ball here to first. Crook will make the play unassisted and that’s the first out of the inning. One down in the Pirates second and Lloyd McClendon will be coming up. He’s starting only his 10th game tonight. We have 90th birthday greetings this evening for John Vigleó from Banger, Pennsylvania. Our congratulations to John. He actually saw Babe Ruth play baseball. He saw him play live. Isn’t that amazing? That is amazing. So, our congratulations to John who is a great Phillies fan and we hope he’s watching tonight. McClendon normally serving as a pinch hitter. He’s a pretty good batter, but that average at 178 right now. Obviously, he’s had trouble getting going this year. That’s high two balls and no strikes. While we’re talking about birthday wishes, I’d also like to pass along happy 70 birth 70th birthday wishes to Cass Thraves from Philadelphia celebrating with us tonight here on Sports Channel. Ground ball to short. Stalker, nice hop. Makes the play. McClendon is out. Two down. These pitchers are handling the hitters so far tonight. Stalker with the play. And now Al Martin will bat. You know, here’s an underrated pirate. Al Martin’s done a real nice job. Coming up with a 305 average and 30 runs batted in, sharing the team lead with seven homers. And obviously a versatile player because he’s filled in for Van Slike in center. Yeah. And you know what people don’t remember or don’t know is that Al Martin didn’t play a whole lot of baseball in his younger days. You know, he was predominantly a football player. Has really only been playing baseball the last few years. Well, he hit that one hard, but Hatcher is there on the track, but he hit it to the wrong part of the yard. Dead center field. Down go the Pirates. Nothing nothing after two. Our next game on Sports Channel will be coming up Monday when the Marlins are at Veteran Stadium. Then July 9th from Candlestick Park in San Francisco. A Saturday afternoon for you. Backing in with those Giants from the vet on July 20th and at Florida on July 27th. Bring your rain shoes for that one, Twood. They’re getting some rain down there this year. We understand that, you know, last year everybody thought they’d never ever take batting practice in Joe Robbie Stadium. They didn’t have much trouble with it last year. They’re having more trouble this year. Here’s Tom Quinnland to lead it off for the Phillies getting a start at third base tonight. Quinnland starting just his seventh game. He’s been in 12 other games defensively and last night he was a pinch hitter. Leieber jams him. One ball, one strike on Quinland. Defensively, the Phillies have had a lot of trouble at third base this year. It doesn’t seem to matter who goes out there. It’s been Rocky probably. I I’m just guessing now, but I think more errors have been committed at third base than any other position. Normally, that would be the shortstop position because they field so many balls. Yeah. involved in so many more plays out in the middle of the infield, but the third basemans this year have had trouble. Kim had a problem last night in the first inning and it hurt the Phillies because it it set up that fourrun first for the Pirates. Only one of those runs in the first inning was earned. High-fly ball left center field. Martin drifting and that’s the first out of the inning. David West loves to swing the bat. The one thing he hasn’t done as a starting pitcher is get a hit. You know, he came into the year batting .417 lifetime, but he’s gone 0 for eight. It’s kind of hard to believe. I was giving him a hard time the other night. He said, you know, we keep talking about your hitting, talking about your hitting. How about start doing some of it here? You’re making us look bad. So maybe Big Bird can break through tonight. Loves to swing that stick. Batting off a tough customer here, though. And he’s got a good eye, as you notice, taking that pitch. Gento Italian Food Products rooting for the Phillies this season. For every Phillies home run, Chento will donate $200 to the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center. Look for the bright yellow label on your grosser shelves. So, his lifetime average has gone down to 250. Hey, what about swinging the stick? He was trying to bunt it there. Whoa. He’s still making us look bad. That’s almost like a concession right there. I don’t think you’re going to see David West get too many leg hits. No, I don’t think so. He wants to bunt again. He’s gone. That basically is saying one of two things. The first one’s funny. I can’t hit this guy. The second one is I can’t swing the bat, which is rib cage related. Yeah. Well, that now that’s one I’m concerned about. Now, I think you’ve touched on it and maybe that’s his answer to not aggravating it. Not that it’s bothering him now, but he just Yeah, I think you’ve touched on it. That’s a good point. Billy Hatcher grounded out to short first time up. Of course, that will be duly noted over in the Pirate dugout also. Oh, yeah. You may almost be better off if you’re not going to swing to not even try to bunt just to not let them know that later on in the game you may not take a swing. Liber does not have control problems though. I mean, it’s not a matter of waiting for him to get wild. He won’t do it. Ground ball to short. Jay Bell’s got it. Hatcher is out. And another one, two, three inning for the young hurle. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Bottom of the third coming up, it’s nothing nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the Phillies baseball on Sports Channel is brought to you in part by Budweiser. Beachwood aged for a crisp, clean classic taste. Dodge, a winning team, the championship Phillies, and the award-winning lineup of new cars and trucks at your local Dodge dealer. The Pennsylvania Lottery proceeds benefit older Pennians. Bottom of the third in a scoreless ball game. Don Slaugh leads it off for the Pirates on our pregame show tonight. We showed you that two-run home run he hit last night. Slot saying after the ball game that he really hasn’t felt like his swing has been right all year. But last year when he battled over 300, he earned that nickname Sluggo. Sluggo Had American League experience before the Pirates got him from the Yankees. Sloth nearly an everyday catcher, but they are using Lance Parish quite a bit here now. And Lance has done a surprisingly good job. He’s done an outstanding job for the Pirates. Jim Leland very, very pleased with the job Parish has done. Line drive to Stalker. Hit it hard, but slaughter’s out. One down. Seven in a row, retired by West after giving up a leadoff single to Garcia. Here comes the pitcher Liieber. A left-handed batter. Another one of those guys that I hate. pitches with the right arm and then when he goes to the plate sticks it right out there on the front side where if he’s going to get plunked he’s going to get plunked in his pitching arm. Not that he’s a great hitter. 063, you know, can make a little bit of contact, but uh I just don’t understand why guys do that, including Danny Jackson on our ball club. Just does not, you know, doesn’t make sense to put your money maker right out there in the open. Liieber, by the way, was 0 for 12 as a big league hitter until he got a single off Bob Tukesberry in his last start. So now he’s 1 for 16. He’s been pitching deep into ball games, really gobbling up the innings for the Pirates. Stalker’s got yet another play and there are two quick outs here in the third. Both purers really doing the job so far. Well, now back to Garcia, the only player for the Pirates who has a hit tonight. Second baseman Carlos Garcia. Garcia single to center field starting the bottom of the first. Phillies had the chance to pick up the early run as a result of those BS. They had a runner at third base with only one out. The Phillies in this series T have not been getting the runners in from third with less than two outs. left a couple out there last night. And we talk about, you know, the Phillies offensively putting things together and that’s what it’s going to take to put one of these streaks together. They’re going have to put some offense together consistently day in and day out and of course tighten up the defense. You can’t make the mistakes that the ball club made last night. Getting those runners in from third base part of that offensive combination. And you know, the little runs, the one run you pick up here, the one run you pick up there are the ones that allow you to go ahead and then, you know, build on it later on. It’s much easier for a manager in a ball club to build on a one or two run lead than to play dead even and try to score three or four at once. I’ve forgotten what the percentage is, but I know it’s high. When you get the first run in the ball game, you go on to win much more than half the time. First run always looks big, even if it comes in the first inning. You wouldn’t think that would be so significant, but right away, you know, the other team’s got to score two. Well, they’ve got to score two. Plus, you take a little bit away from them. You know, and the farther that lead goes into the ball game, you start taking the bunt away from them. You take the hit and run. You take the steal. A lot of the offensive weapons go out of the way when you’re trailing in a ball game. Colorado wound up winning that game over Houston today 14 to five. Those Rockies are something. They can pile up runs. David Ne recently pitched their first shut out ever at Mile High Stadium. Terry Mahaland had one there last year for the Phillies. Lookout. Garcia is on for the second time. That’s a walk, but he was nearly hit. The first walk issued by West. Westy with a lot of perspiration out there tonight. We said the humidity had left the air. Actually, the humidity is a great deal lower than it’s been the last couple of days here, but there’s still some left. I say it’s lower, but it’s not gone by far. Just like the temperature is a little bit lower tonight, too. But it’s still warm. Just not overbearing. Bell struck out first time around. Garcia’s got a pretty good lead and West spins Dalton around on that pitch. The proverbial high hard one high and wide. Bell coming off a gold glove season. Last year he finally arrested the gold glove from the Great Wizard. There goes Garcia. Dalton’s throw. He got him. Stalker puts the tag on Garcia. Dalton is throwing so very well. No runs, no hits, nobody left. And after three, it’s a scoreless ball game. The play that ended the bottom of the third inning. Carlos Garcia off takes a quick peek back to look to see if the throw’s online a little bit to the shortstop side. Stalker gets the glove down very close, but I think if we take one more look at it, Garcia gets the hand in just before the tag. So, I think the Phillies might have been the beneficiary of that call right there. Garcia, he knew he was safe. I think he knew he was in there by half a hand or half a fingernail. Mickey Morendini has the Phillies only hit. Let’s see if he can do what Garcia did and get on for a second time. And then Mickey was boked to second and balked to third. Too bad they couldn’t bulk him home. Where’s Bob Davidson when we need him? He did all he could. Got him all the way to third. Official scoreboard now. Jim Leland. Nothing. Umpire is four. Mets got a run, but they still trail the Braves two to one now. That game is in the top of the third inning in Atlanta. Right after the game or certainly tomorrow at any rate, the Braves will be headed for Philadelphia. They’ll play the Phillies at the vet on Friday night. Grand one. Like to pass along happy 59th happy anniversary wishes to Benny and Jenny Finelli of Haden Heights, New Jersey. Also, happy 50th wedding anniversary to Joseph and Christine Barbarie of Ottabon, Pennsylvania. Good Philly fans that are watching us tonight on Sports Channel, I’m sure. Young John Leieber, just 24, out of Council Bluffs, Iowa, walked him. And Mickey does indeed get on just as Garcia did. So only two players have reached base in this ball game. Garcia and Morendini, the second baseman, and they’ve each been on twice. Each with a hit, each with a walk. John Krook is coming up. John struck out first time around, but while he was up there was when those blocks were being called, so he had a few extra strikes. Yeah. The goal of the first at bat is to get a look at a guy that you haven’t seen for a while. Krook got a few extra uh pitches to try to get a Liieber lined up. You notice John Leieber has changed his stretch motion. Before he was bringing his hands up in front of his face, stopping at his chin, and then coming to his belt. Now he’s going right directly to the belt on a very short stretch motion. Yeah, he doesn’t want to press his luck here. Says Bob Davidson’s over at third base. Got the eye on me. Bing bomb. He has earned the reputation. So obviously Ray Miller had a conversation with Liieber between innings saying, “Well, you know, Davidson’s over at third base looking right at you. We’re just going to have to change it so that there’s no doubt at all as far as what you’re doing.” You know, the the reason being the reason you would change it. Here’s his natural move. This is what Liieber naturally does. The hands come up to the chin. Stop. Stop. That’s the first B. Here comes the second one. Stops at the chin. Stops at the belt. Now, that is a natural motion for Liieber. Both of those were called box. And the reason why he will now change and go to that short stretch is, you know, if you start going into your natural stretch, you’re going to naturally stop in the two places you normally stop. So, Ray Miller must have instructed Liieber, you know, just change it completely. Just pull it to that second stop. Just go directly to it. Don’t even take the hands up anywhere near your chin. It’s kind of an a tough adjustment to make mid game, isn’t it, T? It is. And you know, you’re doing something that you’re not used to doing. There goes the runner and the ball is drilled to the gap in right center field. Morendini is going to score on this play. Crap goes into second. He’s got a double. Phillies lead one- nothing. And a lot of times, this is exactly what will happen to a pitcher that has to change his motion like that. He’s spending his time now thinking about don’t bring the hands up, don’t b and it disrupts his thoughts about what he wants to do to home plate. So Krook gets a pitch right here. See slot on the inside part of the plate. The ball tails back out into the middle, right out into the good part of the hitting part of the plate. Kuck lines it up the gap in center field. Morendini scores all the way from first. John Leieber is down one to nothing. The Phillies are on the board and the Pirates are saying walk the leadoff hitter and it burns you every time. Darren Dalton is up there now. Darren hit one to the track in left field. First time up, but it was caught. Hard ground ball right side. It goes through for a hit. John Croc is being held by Boa. And he gets back to third. Now the ball goes to center. Crook scores. Dalton goes from second to third on the play. And he gets in there. There’s going to be an error. It’s two nothing Phillies. And the Pirates have come unglued defensively here. Well, there’s no cut off man on the throw from right field because Martin and Garcia both dive for the ball. Mercedes throw goes all the way through to the plate. Dalton knowing that there’s no cut off man goes ahead and goes to second. Slot tries to come up throwing it is about 20 ft too high. Fortunately, Al Martin was able to scamper back over and cut that ball off. That could have went all the way to the center field wall. By the time he gets it back in, Dalton’s over at third base. So, some defensive lapses on the Pirates part. The infield is in now. The Phillies lead it two to nothing. The error charged to slot on that throw that went to center. And with Dalton at third, Eisenri has a chance to get another one in here. Eisenrik struck out first time around. Liieber from the full windup. There’s a base hit for Eisenriking 0 for 11. It’s three nothing Phillies. Ray Miller going to come out and talk to his young pitcher here. Well, before we discount the the base running of Dalton, very alert by him to make that move and go to second base, knowing being able to see as he’s going down the first baseline that Martin and Garcia both dove for the ball. There was no cut off man. As soon as the ball went to the plate, he knew he had a clear shot at second base. Moved up 90 ft. The throw from slot moved him up another 90 ft where he can score on the single from Eisenrike. If he had not moved off first base, he’s still there. Eisenrike single does no more than just move him to second base. So the alert base running of Dalton turns into another Philly run. Happy bunch down there. Kuck got the first run in. Here’s Eisenri’s hit again. Setting on the inside. The ball tails back out into the middle of the plate, the hitters part of the plate. Eisenrike lines it sharply into left field. The Phillies on the board again and the Pirates have action in their bullpen. Looks like Rell Manzano is up and throwing. There’s Rell. So all of the sudden, and I have to believe it’s because of the change in the stretch move, Liieber not as not as comfortable with what he’s doing and all of a sudden those pitches that he was working inside and outside all of a sudden in the middle of the plate and being hit hard. Now facing Milt Thompson. Mil popped up his first time around. And I have to agree with you. The conversation by Miller, I would almost bet, was more about the stretch position than it was about, you know, how he’s throwing the ball. Now we see just a little bit different. Now Lever’s bringing the hands back up to the chin and back down again. So trying to get a little more comfortable going back to his original emotion, but now he’s got to be alert to remember not to stop up by the chin. So he’s still thinking about the stretch position instead of thinking about what he’s doing at the plate. It’s hard enough to pitch out there under normal circumstances when you got extra thoughts running through your head. Very, very difficult. Blow an end to Thompson. Well, he walked the leadoff hitter and now he’s given up three straight hits. Crux double, Dalton single, Eisenri single. And the Phillies have three on the board here in the fourth inning. One and two. The count on Mil. Two and two. Now you notice early Liieber was on the corners and the ball was in and out, in and out, right on the corners. Now all of a sudden when he’s missing, he’s missing very wide of the plate. Could be a young man that’s just a little bit confused right now as far as what he’s supposed to do. Am I supposed to not b or am I supposed to throw pitchers to the plate? out. Jim Eisenright caught stealing for the first time all year and that’s the first out of the inning. Good throw by Don Slaugh right on the money at second base. See Carlos Garcia tags to applies the tag on Eisenri’s foot right before he gets it in there. Thompson a little topper right back to Leieber. He was in a whole heck of a lot of trouble here a minute ago. Oh, he starts to run off the field. Lever thought that was the third out. He ran for the dugout. Now he’s got to go back. That’s right. That’s a confused pitcher right now. This man has lost. We talked about the great composure, but right now he has lost it. And it all started by worrying about that stretch position. Now all of a sudden, he gets a couple outs. He forgets how many outs there are in an inning. This is a young man that’s not thinking about pitching baseball right now. He’s thinking about everything else that’s going on around him and not about what his job is. job here is to face Stalker with the bases empty and two outs. Stalker grounded out to second first time around. We see Liieber right here. He’s He’s ready to leave the field. Wait, how come nobody’s following me? Oh, there’s only two outs. Who among us hasn’t lost track of the out one time or another? I mean, you’d think that from one to three it wouldn’t be that tough, but uh every once in a while It’s really bad when you start doing it after one out. Yeah, you’ve been out there a long time. Two balls in a strike on Stalker. A quick up quick uprising by the Phillies. Produced three runs and that’s the score right now. Three nothing. Two and two on Stock. You know, it’s funny. The key to that whole inning was probably the walk to Morandini because that’s what put Liber into the stretch position where he had to start thinking about all the other elements was box took place in the first inning, but in the second and third innings, he went 1 2 3 1 2 3 because he never got back to the stretch. Driving McClendon back, but he makes the play to end the inning. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Three runs, three hits, an error. Nobody left on base. Phillies lead three nothing. Phillies against the Dodgers those two nights. Always the best, biggest, and most fun fireworks. This annual spectacular set to music, it’s a must. And get your tickets early because these are always big sellers. Call 4631000. Dates July 14 and 15 for the works. Three nothing Phillies as Bell leads off the fourth for the Pirates. West struck him out first time up. David’s only strikeout so far tonight. Of the three runs for the Phillies, two are earned, one is not earned. I’m going to think about that a little bit longer. I got a feeling the slots error that moved Dalton to third would ended up I still think they’re earned runs. I think all three of them are Well, maybe the official scorer will change his mind, but he has announced that two are earned and one is well. Well, we’ll go with that for right now, but I just want to have a notation that I am in slight disagreement. You want to play this one under protest, do you? No, I don’t want to protest the runs. I like the three runs for the Phillies. Leave them there. Doesn’t matter if they’re earned or uneared. They’re on the board. Strike. It’s three and one on Bell. Certainly David West does not want to come out and walk the leadoff hitter after the team gets him three. Strike two. It’s a full count on Bell trying to beg his way on. West was wild when he was a reliever for the Phillies. That was one of the reasons why he got that start in St. Louis. Uh, you know, and Jim Fosce said at the time it was supposed to be just a one-star deal to get him straightened out and he he’s not been in the bullpen since. Jammed him and a popup. Morendini ranging to shallow right. Mickey is there and Bella is out. One down in the fourth. Nice job by David. Falls behind three balls and no strikes on the leadoff hitter. Able to come back after throwing two strikes, a couple of foul balls. gets the pop up into short right field. Here’s Jeff King fly to center field. He’s got to be an enigma for the Pirates. He drove in 98 runs last year. He was not a long ball threat then either really, but as Tik said, he only has two this year. So, you’re seeing him all over the lineup as the Pirates experiment with where he can best help them. Well, what they did was pirate hitting instructor Milt May last year changed King’s swing. He had much more of a wraparound swing that had more power to it. They took away some of that loop in his swing to try to give him a little more bat control. This is going to leave the park. No, he didn’t. That one’s gone. King’s third home run of the year. And the Phillies now lead three to one. That’s only the fifth home run yielded by David West. Just as I was saying, they took that loop out of his swing. It cost him some power, but he hit for a better average. Obviously, it didn’t cost him all of his power. He got enough of a loop on that one to get the bat out in front. Hit it right on the button and drove it out of here. And we see that swing. It’s not quite as long as it used to be, but that one was right on the button. See the extension through the baseball. Pitch about thigh high on the inside part of the plate. Hits it off that blue facing up there. Now Brian Hunter three to one Phillies lead it. Look out the back. And that’s lucky. It hit the roof right in front of the Phillies dugout, so nobody was hurt. Landed right smack on the edge of the roof, right over in the photographers area, which is just beyond the Philly dugout. So Jeff King’s power numbers may be down, but is not completely non-existent. For the Pirates, though, that’s only their 42nd home run as a team, and that is the lowest figure in the league. Yeah, there was some concern for a while in Pittsburgh that Griffy Jr. was going to hit more home runs than the Pirate Ball Club. In fact, for a while there was a little chart in the paper every once in a while. Well, there’s only 12 different now, right? I know. 383 ft that home run traveled. Brian Hunter fouled out to John Krook in his initial at bat tonight back in the first inning. Three to one Phillies. We’re now in the fourth. Close, but West miss it. Two and one. Remind me never to talk about a guy doesn’t have as much power as he used to anymore. Walk that one away. That doesn’t work. You got caught, Dick. We all do. Three balls in one strike. So West falls behind Bell to start the inning. 3 and 0 now. Three and one behind Hunter. Hard hit but fouled. It kicked up chalk on down the line but by the time it got to the bag it obviously was foul. That 3-1 pitch is a dangerous one. Hitters love it. Pitchers fear it. Yeah. Because the hitter can sit there and look for one pitch in one spot and if he doesn’t get exactly what he’s looking for, no big deal because he’s going to have the 3-2 pitch coming. Did he swing? Yes, he did. Appeal made to Jerry Davis who rules that Hunter strikes out of the inning. Again, the West breaking ball well out of the strike zone. Saw it earlier with Jay Bell. This one way out in front. Hunter tries to get his body out of the way and check the bat at the same time. Not able to hold the swing. That one not quite as close, I don’t think, as the one on Jay Bell. Stepping in now, Orlando Merced. Fly ball center field. Hatcher lines it up. So down go the Pirates. They get a run on Kings home run. Their only hit. Nobody left on base. It’s 3-1 Phillies after four. The annual photo night’s coming up this Saturday at Veteran Stadium. Phillies meet the Braves at 7:05. The activities sponsored by Kodak. The number for your tickets 4631000. And a lot of people are going to be at the event on Saturday night. That little teddy bear. I wonder if that’s a Philly’s teddy bear or a pirate teddy bear. T can you tell? Phillies cannot tell. Probably just a neutral bear. Well, the Phillies have a 3-1 lead as we move to the fifth and Tom Quinnland leads it off. Nice warm night here in Pittsburgh. Great night for a ball game. Not uncomfortable by any means. Quinnland flyed to center in his only at bat. So obviously the key for Liieber now is to keep guys off base so he can work from the wind up. Huh. Exactly. The problem started last inning when he went to the stretch and he’s going to because he had the problem earlier, he’s going to be thinking about it the next time he goes to the stretch. Garcia has an easy play there to Quinnland is out, one down. It’s only natural that when you have a problem like that and you know you’ve had two bucks called on you and you’re a young guy, you’re going to think about it. You know, hopefully a veteran pitcher who’s been through the wars a lot of times may be able to forget about it. But it’s going to be very difficult for Liieber, at least for the rest of tonight, to forget about those B calls. Now, let’s see if West swings the bat. He probably will not, as Tik suggested, because of that rib cage cage injury. Lever could blow him away on three pitches here if he doesn’t swing the bat. He tried to bunt twice last time and struck out. Doesn’t want to really tee off because of the rib cage. And this bunt really is, you know, at this point, this bunt isn’t going to do you a whole lot of good other than try to make somebody feel the ball and possibly throw it away at first base because, you know, they’ve got a pretty good idea right now that you’re going to be bunting. Ball one, one and two. So, they’re playing up within range to field the bunt. He’s out again on strikes as he bunchs that third one foul. Strike out number four for Leieber. Two down here in the fifth inning. Back to the top of the lineup. I don’t think that West has a sore rib cage any longer. I think he’s just I think it’s preventative. Yeah, right. Didn’t want to reagravate it. You know, it’s one thing to throw the baseball, but swinging the bat just exact. You know, you’re throwing the ball, West is throwing the ball from his left side. When you swing the bat, you pull the bat through with your right side. So, you know, the different motions could affect the rib cage differently. I’m sure that at some point in time before tonight’s ball game, David went out and, you know, tried to swing the bat a little bit or at least swung the bat in the clubhouse to see what it was going to feel like. And if it was any kind of pulling action at all, I’m sure he decided just not to swing the bat at all. He’s much more valuable to the Phillies out on the mound doing his job out there than he is at home plate. Lever worked in on Hatcher who twice has grounded out to shortstop. Chased one there. Hatcher on a six-game hitting streak right now batting over 400 during that streak. But tonight 0 for two. Nice pickup for the Phillies. That trade sending Wes Chamberlain to the Red Sox for Hatcher and Paul Quantro has really helped the Phillies and Lever gets strikeout number five. You’re watching Phillies baseball on Sports Channel. A one, two, three inning for Lever. We go to the bottom of the fifth. 3-1 Phillies. Phillies baseball on Sports Channel brought to you in part by your Quality Plus Ford dealers who invite you to test drive the new 94 Mustang convertible. Bell Atlantic Mobile. A mobile phone is only as good as the system it’s on. Choose Bell Atlantic Mobile. Nationwide Insurance Enterprise. Nationwide is on your side. Your Nationwide agent in Exon is Frank Imperat. Andy Muser with Kent Dulty. We move now to the bottom half of the fifth inning. It’s 3-1 Phillies and Lloyd McClendon will be leading it off. What’s better than ice cream on a warm summer night for a ball game? Well, I know the answer to that. I know you know. But ice cream does look good right about now. It is cold and frosty also. Thank you, Tik Mlendon. Grounded out to Short his first time up. Tik and I went to a local establishment last night and discussed our game plan for this evening over a cold and frosty one. Into the air, hit well to left and that is gone. Mlendon’s first of the year and now it’s a 32 game. This is surprising to see the Pirates with their home run power in this series. Slaugh hit his first last night. Mlendon comes through with number one tonight. mentioned the Pirates with not a whole lot of home run power, but this ball again about thigh high in the middle of the plate. You see McClendon with a good extension ball middle of the plate in a little bit gets the big part of the bat on it. Wasn’t a whole lot of doubt about that one. The hitter is Al Martin. Takes a call strike. David West came into the game having given up just four home runs all year. He’s given up two here tonight. That’s what Martin hit one to the track and center his first time up. So, the Pirates have pulled to within one. Had they not given the Phillies a run, this would be a tie game right now because only two of the Phillies runs are earned. Martin fouls it right at the plate and he broke his bat or at least he suspects he did. Pounds that thing down. He’s not convinced it isn’t broken. I’ll tell you what, it sounded like it broke when he slammed it on the ground. I know. It sounded still checking the handle. He’s always been a tough out for the Phillies. Now he found it. Yeah. Let’s get rid of this thing. Look long enough, you’ll find that crack. I don’t think the bat was broke until he slammed it onto the ground. I think he broke it himself. Now he’s going to go to a black beauty. Changing bats all together here from the blonde to the black. It’s that McClendon home run ball being passed around out in the left field stands. Everybody getting a look at it. Martin strikes out. Strikeout number three for West. Go back and find another color. Neither one of those worked. capture Don Slot. Now, here’s Don Slot. We mentioned he hit his first home run here last night. He hit the ball hard first time up this evening, too. It was a line drive to Stalker. Lance Parish, the other Pirate catcher, had a home run here Monday, but that was washed out by the weather, so that one doesn’t count. We mentioned about the middle part of the plate being the hitters part of the plate. When the Phillies scored the three runs in the fourth inning, Liieber started getting the ball in the middle of the plate. Both of the home runs that West has given up have been out in the middle part of the plate. Slug has extra bases here. Thompson to play it out of the corner and Sluggo’s got a double. So the Pirates have four hits in the game. Three for extra bases. Now, let’s see what Lever does here. Is there any advantage into bunning a guy to third? Well, there’s an advantage, but it’s such a slight one. We see the breaking ball by West gets it on the inside part of the plate, but Slot able to get it down the line past Tommy Quinland into the corner. Tommy makes a valiant effort to try to get to it, but not able to flag it down. As far as Liber goes, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of advantage to moving the man. If you move him to third base, there’s two outs. It’s still going to take a base hit to score him unless there’s a wild pitch or an infield hit. The only way that you can get the man in from third base with two outs as opposed from second slot with not the greatest speed. You know, it might be an advantage on a base hit. The Phillies may have a chance to throw him out at the plate. So, you know, that would also be an advantage move over to third base, but Jim Leland, at least for the moment, elects to let Liieber swing away. Liieber grounded to short and is only at bat tonight. He’s 1 for 17 as a big league hitter with one sacrifice. Phillies leading precariously now 3-2. Jim Leland awfully unhappy earlier tonight. That’s Bill Verden sitting to Jim’s right. Bill a former big league manager. In fact, he managed against the Phillies for the Houston Astros in that classic 1980 playoff series. Down the left field line, foul to the Phillies bullpen. Slot stays at second. West matching up here with Liber in the fifth inning of our ball game. The Pirates have won four of their last five and six straight here at Three River Stadium. Strikes him out. Number four for West. Second of the inning. Now he’s got to try to get Garcia something he has not accomplished tonight. Carlos has singled and walked. Dirty uniform because he was out stealing second base. Dying run at second. There are two outs. Nice play by Dalton. That thing was up for grabs right there. Ball well in off the plate. You see Dalton shifting over. Got the long hop. The catchers the short hops don’t bother him too much. That’s pretty easy to handle. But when that ball bounces out in front of home plate, can do a lot of variations by the time it gets back to the glove. Dutch does a nice job of getting the glove and picking that one on the inside part of the plate. Ground ball to shortstop should get the Phillies out of the inning. Stalkers throw in plenty of time and that takes care of the Pirates. They get a run though on McClendon’s homer. Two hits, one man left on base and after five, it’s 32 Phillies or stopped by any one of your local ticket master outlets. We go to the sixth inning. The Phillies are ahead three to two. And Mickey Morendini has been on twice tonight with a single and a walk and scored one of the Phillies runs. Leading off the sixth, Morandini, Krook, and Dalton. As we mentioned earlier, it was the Morandini walk leading off the fourth inning that started all the problems for John Leieber. Put him into that stretch position that he was not comfortable at all in. Here’s another hit from Morendini. A gapper. Yes, it gets beyond Mlendon. Mickey’s got extra bases. A double for Morendini. And the stretch move coming up for Leieber again. Mickey hits this ball solidly to left field. McClendon playing a little bit on the shallow side in left field. Not able to get over in the gap and cut this pitch off. A good sinking fast ball away by Lever. McClendon already retreating trying to cut it off. Not able to go straight across. The ball gets by him and goes all the way to the wall. So Mickey cruises into second with a leadoff double. McClendon was taking a chance by playing up on Morendini. Mickey got a good piece of the ball and drove it right on by him. Here’s John Croc. He doubled in a run in his last time up. He struck out the first time. And we have action again in the Pirate bullpen. Rell Manzano up and throwing as he was in the fourth inning. Shouldn’t take him too long to get ready after being up once before. or if Jim Leland should elect to bring him into the ball game. Got all kinds of left-handed batters coming up here. Krook, Dalton, Eisenrike, Thompson, all stacked end to end to end, if you will. Now the Phillies get some bullpen action, too. That’s Paul Quantrell, the right-hander. Could be that the rib cage is starting to bother David. It could also be that the Phillies just want to be rid of the hit for him. A really big inning develops here. Yeah, David’s at that five inning point. Remember, he started the year as a reliever. So, grounder on the right side. Crook moves the runner. Leieber covers. The out is recorded. Morendini to third on the ground out. John gets the job done. Tries to hit the ball through that hole on the right side. Not able to get it through, but even though it is recorded as an out, the residual benefit. Morendini moves up 90 ft over at third base in position where Darren Dalton can hit a nice deep fly ball. Phillies can pick up an extra run. Of course, a fly ball in the gap would be even nicer. Fly ball over the fence would be even nicer than that. Infield is in tight for Darren. His next RBI will put him halfway to 100. Tonight, Dalton has flyed to the track and left and single. As you mentioned, when he was after that single, he had good movements on the bases to get all the way around on that wild play where slot threw to center field and that enable him to score. Two and nothing on Darren has his average at 299 right now. Early on this road trip, Dalton was struggling, but he got it together up in Montreal. He had that four hit game up there. Mendini at third with one out. Phillies ahead 3-2. Two balls, no strikes. That hitter’s favorite count. Dutch got a good rip, just fouled the ball back. Mentioned Liieber, that fast with the movement on it. Even when he gets behind in the count a little bit, you may get the pitch that you’re looking for, but the way it darts around in the strike zone still doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to get the good part of the bat on it. Blooped it into center field for a hit. Morendini scores. And now the Phillies lead at four to two. And Dalton has his 50th run batted in. Not the sharpest of base hits. Got it on the fist a little bit but able to hit it into center field. No man’s land. See right here the ball stays on the inside. Dutch doesn’t really get the big part of the bat on it but able to stay back and hit the ball into center field. Gets the job done. Morendini across the plate back in the dugout. Jim Eisenright comes to the plate. He’ll take his turn. Note from the pirate sheet that Leieber had given up three earned runs or less in each of his first seven starts. Now tonight he has given up exactly three earned runs. One is unearned. Here’s Morendini with a hit. Dalton is scooting over to third base. And the Phillies have first and third with one out as the inning continues. And Eisenrik has his second hit. And Jim Fosce now with the two-run lead decides to put the pressure on has Dalton in motion. Hit and run as for the right side vacated. Carlos Garcia covering the bag. Eisenrik able to ground the ball through. So the Phillies play a little first and third. And Jim Leland’s on his way to the mound. Probably with the hook, I would think. Yes, he is. Well, Manzano, he thinks it is. He’s on his way in. Leela must have already made the motion. We didn’t see it when he came out of the dugout, but Manzano is on his way in and Liieber is on his way out. So, it’s five and a third innings for Lever tonight. Pitching change here at Three River Stadium. Phillies up 4-2. We’ll be right back. Four runs, seven hits, no errors for the Phillies. Two runs, four hits, one error for the Pirates. Travel arranged through US Air offering convenient non-stops between Philadelphia and Seattle. Making business travel easy. US Air begins with you. 30-year-old left-hander Ravell Menzano comes into the game for Pittsburgh. His brother Josas pitches for the New York Mets. They claim to have 37 brothers and sisters. So, we might have a few more Manzanos to keep track of before too long. Manzano making his 25th appearance of the season. in one win, one loss, 284 earned run average. Has done a good job for the Pirates in 25 and the third innings, given up 22 hits, struck out 22, has walked 18, a rather high walk total for that number of innings, but he has been very effective for the Pirates. A funky type left-hander. He’s got that real wild delivery, and it’s going to be difficult for the Philly left-handed hitters to pick up the ball from Mansine. He was with the Pirates before they signed him at age 16, but he never appeared in the big leagues. Then he went on to Baltimore, the White Sox, and Toronto. Now he’s back with Pittsburgh. Bill Thompson batting with runners first and third, one out. Milo for two in the ball game. Chance for the Phillies to break it open here. They lead 4-2 in the sixth. 2 and 0. You mentioned about the string of left-handed hitters that the Phillies had had coming up. Mil Thompson the last in that line. Stalker the switch hitter will get the bat right-handed against Manzano and then Quinnland another right-handed hitter. So Leland had the left-hander up, but by the time he got him into the ball game, the Phillies had got through that left-handed part of the lineup. So hopefully, you know, Mily can get something in here and get the right-handers around, capitalize a little bit, open this ball game up a little. Hey, Manzano rushed that one up there a little bit. That’s pretty good fast ball. Back in 88, Manzano was 0 and1 with the White Socks in two games. And that’s all the big league experience he’s really had or otherwise he’s been in the organizations of those teams that I was telling you about, but without big league experience. And Thompson takes a called strike. Two and two from San Pedro de Marice. He is a rookie. I say when you come from San Pedro, you’re supposed to be a shortstop, not a left-handed reliever. Right. Bet he can feel his position out to Bell. They get an out there. They get an out there. So Manzano does the job as he gets the ground ball double play. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Phillies pick up a run on three hits. One man left on base. Phillies lead 4-2. Superstars of the past take the field with you. For details on Philly’s Dream Week, call 215-938-1200. That’s 215-938-1200 for Philly’s Dream Week. Phillies are changing pitchers here, bringing the right-hander Paul Quantrell into the ball game.Wantrell acquired on May 31st for West Chamberlain. He came to Philadelphia along with the outfielder Billy Hatcher. Quantrol making his 10th appearance. Two wins, no losses. A nice 318 earn run average. Guy Jim Fosce really loves because he’s got one of those rubber arms. You can use him every day. He can give you a couple innings. A real staff saver. loves to pitch every day. Told me that he has never ever not once iced his arm. Never. Well, trainers put a lot of trainers out of business and keep doing that. That’s for sure. Also says he likes to what he calls abuse his arm. He like likes to go out and throw every day. He’ll throw in the outfield. He’ll throw in the bullpen. Loves to throw the baseball. Right off the foot of Jay Bell. That had to hurt. Going to have a little chance to walk that one off. Try to get that feeling back in there again. It’s four to2 Phillies. We’re in the sixth and Quantro and the uh the old hole situation here. David West can win it. Probably going to see Jonesy before the night’s over. He’s like you are. Jonesy wants to pitch, you know, three or four times a week and it’s been a while since he’s been in the ball game. So, this probably is a night that Doug Jones will get an inning, especially with the Phillies being off tomorrow. Hopefully, it’s that ninth inning with about a two or three run lead. Would be nice. Here’s a popup right in the infield. Quinnland’s going to go after it up on the hill. Makes the catch or almost up on it right at the edge of the mound. And that’s not an easy play for a third baseman. You’re coming over and your concentration is on the baseball. You don’t know where that mound is at. See Quinnland right now? He’s got I got it. I got it. And that’s fine. And he’s got his eyes on the baseball. But that mound can sneak up on you and trip those feet out from under you. Tommy does a nice job of concentrating and catching that ball. He just barely got on the back edge of the mound. That’s the pitcher’s job right there to, you know, a little communication. Let him know how he’s coming up on the mound if he’s getting close. The hitter is King who homered his last at bat. King hit his third of the year out in left field. First time up he flied out. So King is one for two. Ball and a strike on Jeff King. 98 RBI’s for him last year. Another popup, but this will go out to the seats. Quantril is from London, Ontario, Canada. Boston’s sixth round draft choice in ‘ 89. He attended the University of Wisconsin. In fact, he was the 89 team most valuable player there inside a ball with the Red Sox this year. He got into 17 games as a reliever. 1-1 lost one and pitched to an RA of 3.52 at Boston. Strike three call. King is gone. Two outs. Nice combination of pitches by Quantrol. Throws one pitch inside, moves King off the plate, comes back the next time and makes the perfect pitch on the outside. You know, half of the formula is setting the pitch up, but the second half of it is being able to make the pitch and put the hitter away. Now, Brian Hunter batting with the bases empty and two out. Hunter is fouled out and struck out tonight. Big swing, no contact. Yes, fast ball got change up. One and one. Only once tonight have the Pirates gone down in order. West did it in the sec. Yeah, second inning. That is correct. Hunter wants time. He leads the Pirates in runs better then with 31. Chased one in the dirt. just laid his bat on it and that’s a base hit. Hunter with a looping single kind of like served into center field, but he’s got a two out hit. Hunter completely fooled all his weight out in front. Reaches out. Well, he didn’t I think he kept both hands on the bat until contact, but not too long after they’re able to just hit a little soft hump back liner into center field. One of those situations as a pitcher you did everything you wanted to. The guy was just able to throw his bat at the ball and uh get some nice little soft base hit. Can’t do anything about it. So, Orlando Merced represents the tying run in the game led by the Phillies 4-2. Orlando nothing out of two tonight. Fouls it. Strike one. He’s hitting at exactly 300. Bring a glove. Catch a ball. Merrced grounded to first fly to center. It’s low. One ball, one strike on Merrced. Quantril and relief of David West. just missed. That was close. Two and one. Montreal beat St. Louis this afternoon 5-4. And Colorado destroyed Houston 14-5. One of those Rocky Mountain highs, didn’t they? And the Padres’s beat the Dodgers 7 to6. Tonight in the seventh, Atlanta leads New York 2 to1. San Francisco and Cincinnati. They’re 2-2 in the sixth inning. Floyd McClendon on deck. Quantrol in one of those dangerous situations right now. Three ball, one strike count. Tying run at the plate. You have to make a pitch here. High drive deep right center field. That’s gone. It’s a tie ball game. Three homers by the Pirates tonight who have hit fewer than any team in the league. But you couldn’t prove that by the Phillies. It’s why this is dangerous. Three balls in one strike. Quantro throws the ball in the middle of the plate again. and it tails back in there. Merrced looking for fast ball, looking for it where he can handle it. He got it. He delivered. It’s a situation where if you can make a good pitch, you’ve got a chance to get out of the inning, but you are in jeopardy because of the fact that you are in the hole. Three balls in one strike. Merced able to look for the pitch that he wants. He got exactly what he was looking for and did what good hitters do when they get the pitch they’re looking for. Here’s Mlendon who homered his last time up. He takes a strike. So now we have to start all over. Unfortunately for Quantrol, he has now been scored upon in five straight appearances. Well, you keep getting the three ball, one strike counts and having to throw the ball in the middle of the plate. That will continue to happen. There was the ground ball he was looking for a couple of batters earlier. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Looking ahead to July, there’s another business person special coming up on the 20th when the Phillies play the Giants that day. Another extremely popular way to come watch the Phillies, plus a great excuse to take off from work. Compliments of Melon PSFS. For your tickets, call 4631000. 4-4 game going to the seventh inning. Kevin Stalker leads it off for the Phillies against the left-hander Rabello Manzano. Stock tonight grounded to second and fly to left. So David West can no longer win the game and John Lever is off the hook. One stalker Quinland and maybe a pinch hitter for Quantro because the bullpen is up. Looks like Sloum down there. Most definitely is. He’s cranking it up in a hurry, you would suspect. There’s slow. That’s That’s about it. That’s a quick slow right there. Rough outing for Quantro. Got behind on that three ball, one strike count to Merced. And had a throw a fast ball in the middle of the plate. Here’s here’s a 3-1 count right here. Little different type of hitter though. No, but he should get a pitch he will like here. This is where, you know, you don’t have to have a 3-1 pitch, you know, that you try to hit out of the ballpark all the time, but look for a pitch that you can hit hard somewhere. Try to get yourself on base. Strike two down and away. Not the pitch that you’re looking for, so take it and pass onto the 3-2 pitch. Ricky Jordan over in the Philly dugout limbering up a little bit. Potential pinch hitter for Paul Quantrol. Loop down into right field. Base hit. Maybe more. Merced really hustled after it, but Stock’s going to second and the throw is offline. He’s got a double. Two base hit for Stalker to start the seventh inning. He never stopped. And that’s how you get doubles. You get doubles on those first three steps out of the batters box. Stalker with the looper down the right field line. You see right here, loops it down the right field line and he’s off and running already. Doesn’t even hesitate at first base. If Merced could have made a miraculous perfect throw, he had a shot at Stalker at second base. Anything other than that, Stalker’s in there. That’s a good chance to take. So Kevin able to get the Phillies in scoring position with nobody out. Tommy Quinnland coming to the plate. Chance for the Phillies to try to regain the lead after giving up the two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to the Pirates to tie this ball game. Would be nice to be able to jump right back and reestablish the lead in this game. Something that the Phillies have had since the top of the fourth inning. Ricky Jordan has moved out into the on deck circle. Quinnland around to bunt gets it down. Manzano to third out. Oh, that hurts. Quinnland bunts into a fielder’s choice. Well, this bunt goes right back to Manzano. Does not get it down the third base line where you want to. Gets there quickly. Manzano, no hesitation at all. Gets the throw over to King at third base. He applies the tag. What you want to do on that play is move the pitcher one way or the other. Hopefully, you try to bunt the ball down the third base line and get the third baseman to field it by bunting it back to Manzano. He was able to make the play. King was allowed to stay at the bag and make the tag. So poor execution on the sacrifice bunt by Quinland Jordan hitting at 269. Six homers, 26 runs batted in and batting for Quantrell. Ricky still looking for his first pinch hit. He’s 0 for 11 in the pinch. Out into right center field coming hard as Mercedes there for the catch. This has not worked out well for the Phillies at all. They had a man at second with nobody out. Now they have a man at first with two outs. Yeah. Situation Jim Fosce was looking for was a man on third with one out. That fly ball right there by Jordan would have got the run home, but because of the lack of execution in moving stalker from second to third, two outs and a man on first base. A whole different situation. Billy Hatcher nothing out of three tonight with a six-game hitting streak for Hatch. Way outside ball one. Look at that pose by Manzy. He came following through and just held his pose. Hatcher struck out his last time up. Last night, Hatch had two hits. Had three hits on Sunday at Montreal. It’s a strike. outside two and one. It’s a 4-4 game in the seventh inning. Manzano in relief of Leieber. Pirate bullpen up again. And they’ve got a left-hander and a right-hander working down there. Off the glove of Manzano. Garcia. There gets him. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. No runs, one hit, one man left on base. It remains 44 in the stretch. The US Olympic uh festival is going to be on Sports Channel from July 2nd through July 10th. Check your local listings. Among the local athletes in the basketball competition are two Wildcats, Villanova’s Jason Lawson and Alvin Williams. Heath Cliff Sloum now on the hill for the Phillies in this tie ball game. Bottom of the seventh inning. Al Martin leads it off. He has flyed to the track and center and struck out. Sloum making his 36th appearance of the season. Four wins, no losses. 2.98 earned run average. Pirates with their bullpen up. They’re going to hit for Manzano as the third batter of the inning. You can book that. It’s Martin Slot and a pinch hitter. Jeff Ballard, the left-hander throwing for the Pirates. So, we will probably see him next inning. He’s the only one up. Well, the Phillies are going to ru that run they did not get in from third when there were less than two outs early in the ball game. And Krook used the cover off Sloum. He needed it, too. Martin was really barreling down the line. One out. Well, John has to back up on this ball a little bit. Gets back by the line to get the good hop. Once he does, he cuts the distance down as much as he can by running forward and a nice firm throw to Sloum. A lot of times first baseman will have a tendency to try to lay that ball up there and lob it softly. Much much more difficult for a pitcher to handle. Give him a nice firm toss. Cruc does a nice job with it. Here is Slot. He is lined out on double tonight. Manzano is in the on deck circle. So I guess uh the decision is not automatic as to whether to pinch hit here or not. I guess well sometimes there’s a little decoying going on too. Yeah, but it also might be that Leland is happy with what he’s getting on the mound. And if if the bases are empty with two outs, why you might let him bat? Marshall looks like he’s ready to come up. One ball, one strike on Slaugh. First home run of the year for Slaugh in last night’s game. Three homers for the Pirates tonight. It well could be their first three home run game of the year. We said they were lowest in the league in hitting round trippers. They have only 44. And last night they got their first three-run homer. Fly ball not deep. Eisenri makes the call. Two out. And Manzano is going to bat. Guess they were going to use a pinch hitter if there were base runners, but there are none. So Manzano is coming up to the plate. Manzano has had one at bat this year and one hit. A 1,000 batter Twood putting his reputation on the line here. How could you take him out of the game in such a situation? So Jim Leland lets him hit. Let’s see if everything follows order. Manzano from San Pedro should be a little slap and run hitter. Got to slap at first though. Yeah, Denny Nagel, one of his uh pitching mates on the birds. Obviously, this is a show that they’ve seen before and it is not not one of the more serious moments, I guess, in Manzano’s repertoire of things that he does. Manzano seems quite concerned with his form out there, doesn’t he? He’s a stylist, I believe. World Cup final. USA beat Colombia two to one. Highf fly ball, but it should be caught. Eisenright coming over. Hat falls off. He’s fouled by the time he catches it. But the inning comes to a close and down go the Pirates. One, two, three in the seventh. We go to the eighth. It’s 44. on Sports Channel is brought to you by Bud Light. If you want great taste that won’t fill you up and never let you down, make it a Bud Light. The yellow pages, nine out of 10 people use the genuine Bell Atlantic yellow pages. Pico energy. There’s a new kind of energy around here. Pico energy. We’re in the eighth inning of a tie game. Morendini leading off for the Phillies. Good ball game for Mickey. Single, walk, and double. He scored two runs now facing the left-hander Manzano for the first time. Well, we just gave you the World Cup finals. We just were handed the finals of the Carpenter Cup today in the championship game. Ocean Monmouth beats Burks County by a score of 10 to five. It’s their first Carpenter Cup championship. In the four games that they played, they scored 45 runs on 52 hits. So, Ocean Monmouth is the winner of this year’s Carpenter Cup championship. Congratulations. Three and nothing on Mickey trying to continue a perfect night. He’s on Morendini aboard to start the eighth inning. Two hits and a walk. Two hits and two walks for Mickey tonight. And every time that he’s been on to lead off an inning, the Phillies have scored. Three in the fourth, the other run in the six. So he’s been the ignition on all both of the rallies. I shouldn’t say all of them yet. Hopefully all being this being the third one, but the first two. Up to the Cutter to keep the line moving. And John came through with an RBI double in the fourth inning. He’s one for three. He then scored a run himself. 44 game. Phillies have never trailed in this game, but they lost themselves a nice comfortable lead. We are in the midst of this string of left-handers. Te, this is probably another reason why Jim Leland wanted to keep this lefty in. Not that he didn’t have another one up down there. He did, but I think Jim, he has two. Jim can see this game possibly going into extra innings. Manzano now in well he had an inning and two/3s coming in. So you know technically into his third inning of work which is a pretty long outing for him is getting into that string of left-handers but also now we see that he walks more in Deini to lead off the inning. So you know could be in one of those in between zones. They might you’d like to have him in there but is he tiring? Maybe that tired him out. You think so? Well, in in the previous 24 games that he had pitched, he’s only pitched 25 in a third inning. So, I mean, he’s averaging about one inning per appearance. So, probably getting toward the point where he’s, you know, starting to reach his limit. Gets that one over for a strike. He took something off that. And it’s one-on-one on Krook. Well, your old manager, Chuck Tanner, was here last night, and in retrospect, you were going back and lobbying to appear in all 162. That’s why you do this in retrospect. You never do it at this point in time. He did run you out there. What What was What was your high was in the 90s, wasn’t it? 94. Wow. 94 times. Yeah. I asked him at the end of the season if he knew anybody else’s name, but apparently not. There’s Charles. Charles W. He’s a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. And that smile is permanently on his face. That is the happiest man on the face of the earth. He has never had a bad day in his life. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that he can’t be feisty. Oh, no. He can. No, no, no, no. When he wants to get your attention, he gets your attention. Speaking of attention, John Krook should be paying attention right here. We’re talking about that three ball, one strike count. Well, John’s got one of them right here. Pick out one you like, big guy. Let it rip. He did tease off on this shot, but Martin glides over and grabs it. John K really stung that ball, but that’s just a hard out. Been impressed by Martin in center. We, you know, Van Slike’s always out there, but Martin has played all three games here. He’s looked pretty good. Yeah, he has. This one here, Crook hits it right on the button. He gets the 3-1 pitch that he likes. He just hit it on too much of a line. Really hit it hard enough, just didn’t get it high enough in the air for it to carry all the way. Martin able to run back and track it down. But that’s that ever dangerous three ball, one strike count. And you keep getting in that situation often enough, you’re going to get burnt. Last time up, Darren Dalton picked up his 50th run batted in of the year. In that case, he was hitting with the infield in. Dutch has two hits tonight. He’s been a hot hitter. He is 12 for his last 20. Strike oneonone on Dolphin. the Pirate bullpen. Now, Mark Dwey has joined Jay Ballard. So, they have a left right combination down there. Dwy’s done a real nice job. Their closer now is Alejandro Pñena after it had been Rick White early in the year. White had a great April, but he kind of disappeared in May and so far in June. Huh. Well, it’s one of those second time around. You see both Ballard, the lefthander, Dwey, the right-hander. They’re both ready. They’re just standing around waiting right now. But yeah, White got off to a great start, but I think it was one of those situations where, you know, when you see him the second time, all of a sudden the league started making adjustments and he wasn’t making the counter adjustment. So, he’s moved back almost into a long man role now. Good eye for Dalton. Two and two and Darren now hitting at 302. He’ll be back here in Pittsburgh before a lot of us. He’ll be here at the All-Star game, that’s for sure. July 12th. National League squad to be skippered by Jim Fosce. He may bring as many as five Phillies with him. Timeout. Oh, Jimmy’s trying to get that u group rate on the airlines. Bring as many as you can. Don’t blame him a bit. His players have played hard for him. They really have. There have been times this year when it’s been a struggle, but his players have played hard all the time. Dton lays off and now the count is full. Well, what do you think about starting Mickey? I think there’s a good chance that you’re going to see Mickey on the move. Take that double play out of order. Dutch can sneak one down the line in a gap. potential run if he gets just a single for sure. First and third Morendini got a late start but it’s ball four. What matter? Two on with one out. Dalton draws a walk. So we talk about Manzano and Jim Leland wanted to get him into the left-handed part of the lineup. Well, he got him there, but so far he’s walked Morendini. Krook hits the hardline drive to center field and now he’s walked Dalton. So he has not been effective against the left-handed part of the lineup. Why managers have gray hairs. You put your players in a situation where they should have an advantage and then they don’t execute. Jim Eisenright came into the ball game 0 for 10 and made an out his first time up but has two hits since including a run batted in. Well, he knew that wasn’t going to last very long. Wow. His slumps never do if you can call them slumps. Inside ball one. That’s right. Those pirate relievers in the bullpen just kind of standing around. They’re ready for the call should Jim Leland want to make it. I’m going to say they’ve been standing so long they may be cooled off by the time they get the call. Mark Dwey says that I’m going to go take a seat. Breaking ball for a strike. T when you were here for a while, the Pirate bullpen was down the left field line. Why was that? Uh Chuck Tanner moved it there. It used to be when I first came up when Danny Myrtle was a manager, we were in the right field side as it is now. Chuck moved it to the left field side. The reason he said he moved it there was that the sun was over there early and late in the season and we would be warmer. I didn’t buy it at all. I think it was because he could keep an eye on us. He could see us in the left field bullpen because he didn’t trust us. Uhoh. Yeah. He knows. He knows. He didn’t want anything to go on that he didn’t have an idea of what was happening. and he usually did high a ball. Two balls, two strikes. Manzano now, as we mentioned, into that third inning. And because of the two walks and the 3-2 count or the three was a 3-1 count to Kru when he had the ball, has thrown quite a few pitches this inning. So, he’s been extended inning-wise and now this inning he’s extending himself because of the number of pitches that he’s throwing. Normally, that means somewhere along the line you’re going to hang one. You’re going to make a mistake. Fly ball that should be caught. It’s not deep in left. McClendon coming in. That’s the second out of the inning. Well, he hasn’t given up a hit yet in the inning. He has given up the two walks. And another left-handed batter coming up now, Milt Thompson. Mil is 0 for three tonight. Last time up, he grounded into a double play. He was the first batter that Manzano faced when he came in the game in the sixth inning and he got Mil to hit that ball to shortstop. Official attendance tonight 26,376. Morendini at second, Dalton at first. Two away. Tie game 4-4 in the eighth. Strike call. No, it was undetermined whether to swing or not. That was a called strike. Yeah, this is kind of caught. This is known as being caught in between. Should I swing? No, I shouldn’t I swing? No. Was it a ball? It’s a strike. Yeah. Well, best thing that can happen on that is that you don’t hit it because it’s not going anywhere. Hope that you miss it and take another swing at him. Yeah, you see a lot of batters on a check swing like that just kind of tap it, hit that little two hopper back to the mound and you got no chance. So Manzanne comes back with a good fast ball on the outside part of the plate. So unlike uncharacteristically this inning, Manzano out in front, no balls and two strikes in the count. Uncle Mily on the defense. Look out. One and two. Well, that’s that hanger, the one that gets away that we were talking about, but it got way away up over Milt’s head. Manzano is definitely extended right now. You see the perspiration. He’s thrown a lot of pitches. He’s longer in the ball game than he’s used to being. Would be nice to see one of those mistakes right now. Nice little slash base hit by Uncle Milby. Oh, Manzano wins. That’s his first strikeout. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. No runs, no hits, two left. We go to the bottom of the eighth. Still 4-4. Akan tomorrow on July 11th, the Allstar game from Bingington, New York. July 21st, Bingington at Reading. And August 4th, New Britain at Reading. Watch the Eastern League action here on Sports Channel. This game is tied 4-4. Pirates hitting in the bottom of the eighth now. And they’re at the top of their batting order. Garcia to face Sloum. Strike one. Good night for Carlos. He has singled and walked and grounded out. So he’s one for two. Couldn’t ask for more than to be at the top of your batting order. This is the way the skipper lays it out before the ball game. So, if you can be at the top of your batting order in the eighth inning in a tie ball game, that’s just about perfect, isn’t it? That’s just about where the manager would want you to be, that’s where the Pirates are. Oh, Garcia is hit. It hurts, but he has done what he wants to do in a painful sort of way. He’s on base. Count no balls in two strikes. Sloukum tries to come inside on Garcia. Garcia a little upset about it. It’s, you know, it’s not abnormal to have a pitcher go inside. No balls in two strikes. Try to set up the pitch away. Second batter that Sloum has hit this year. You try to go inside with the pitch to push the hitter off the plate and then try to open up the outside part of the plate. You’ve seen so many hitters that dive out over the plate. So you have to set up the outside pitch first. This one from Sloum just gets away inside and hits Garcia. Fourth time that Carlos has been hit. Here it is. See Dutch slides to the inside part of the plate. Actually not a real slick job by Garcia of getting out of the way. He kind of dropped that arm down in the way and then kind of pulled it back. Now T, you’re normally taught to spin away from that pitch. Jay Bell used to be a great bunner. In fact, he is a great bunner. But they used to sacrifice with him all the time. Looks like this might be a spot for one of those old Jay Bell bunts. Well, a couple years ago, he set a National League record for sacrifice bunts, and he would almost bunt every time. Now, the Pirates lost a little offense with the loss to Bonds and Bon over the last couple years. So, Bell has not sacrificed as often, especially early in the game against left-handed, left-handed pitching. But you’re right. This is a situation right here. Tie ball game. Bottom of the eighth. It calls for the bunt. Get Garcia into scoring position and take your chances with the middle of your lineup. 1990 he had 39 sacrificed bunts to lead the major leagues. I don’t think it was a record though, T. I believe the record is 47 held by William Bradley all the way back in 1907. Oh, that was so long ago it doesn’t count. That was before Astrurk. You can’t can’t count before Eststerurf. Bell unable to do it there. Did he swing at that? No swing. No swing. Pulled the back back. Hold the bat back just in time. Pitch on the outside part of the plate. Now that counts. Two balls and no strikes. Now Sloum has to throw the ball in there and allow him to bunt. You tried to avoid the bunt the first couple pitches, but at two balls and no strikes, you pretty much just have to pound the ball in there. Let him lay the bunt down. hope that he will bunt the ball hard to somebody. If not, take the out at first base. You do not want to walk Jay Bell in this situation and allow the Pirates to get the runner into scoring position and not give up the out. Make that lead runner at least cost them one out in this inning. Jay Bell gets it down. It’s a beauty. Morendini feels the throw from Sloum. So Jay Bell is up to his old tricks with that sacrifice bunt and he gets Garcia to second base. Bell’s fifth sacrifice this year. Jay Bell gets the job done. Bunts the ball out on the end of the bat. Has it die. See right here that ball is bunted right on the end of the bat. When you bunt it on the end, even on Astro Turf, it won’t go anywhere. Sloum has no choice except to go to first base. So Jay Bell, the master of the sacrifice bunt, does it again. Now, let’s see if it was worth it. Here’s King. King is one for three. A home run. Way outside. Ball one. King with 30 runs batted in. Only about a third of the way to what he finished with last year when he had 98. Phillies defensively playing straight away both in the infield and in the outfield. Outfield medium deep. to left field and a base hit for King. It’s going to score Garcia with the lead run. King goes to second. He’s got a double and the Pirates lead for the first time. It’s five to four. Earlier in the ball game, the Phillies not able to execute the bunt play and move the runner from second to third. Cost them a run. Jay Bell gets the job done. Jeff King makes it count. Gets a pitch up and in. Hits it down the left field side. Milt Thompson has no chance at all to throw anybody out at home plate. So, he tries to get the ball back into second base, but after he had to chase it down over by the line, King able to get into second base. So, it’s a matter of lack of execution by the Phillies cost them a run. Good execution by the Pirates gives them the lead. Here’s Brian Hunter. He’s one for three in the game tonight. The New York Mets have a 52 lead over Atlanta. Mets batting in the top half of the ninth inning in Atlanta. We’ll see those Braves at Veteran Stadium on Friday night. strike. This game isn’t over yet, but in close scoring games, it will normally be the team that makes the fewest mistakes and the team that executes the best that’s going to win. Right now, the Pirates have executed better in the late innings with the sacrifice there ahead. Alejandro Pñena is up throwing for the Pirates. He’s their closer. Right back to Sloum. Runner hung up going after King. Goes straight at him. And King is out. It’s a double play to end the inning, but the Pirates Oh, no. It was one hopper back to the M. Oh, one hopper. Oh, I’m sorry. I thought that was a line drive. Okay, one hopper. And Young’s going to come out and pinch run for Hunter at first base. So, the Phillies get the lead man. Now, let’s watch it here. Hunter hits the ball right on the button. Slokum with a good job of flagging it down. And then once he’s got King out in the middle, goes right at him. Make the runner commit. Get the ball. One throw tag. That’s the way the play should be done. Nice defensive job by Sloum and Stalker getting the out quickly, not allowing Brian Hunter to move up into scoring position at second base. Now Kevin Young, as you mentioned, goes in and runs for him at first base. You want to get that out quickly so that the batter cannot get himself into scoring position at second. Here’s Merrced. Merced has hit a home run tonight, a two-run home run, and it went to center field or right center actually. 424 ft. They measured it. Strike call. I’m sure that Kevin Young, the runner down at first base who replaced Brian Hunter, Brian Hunter, will stay in the game as the first baseman. Yeah, they did that last night. Yeah, Jim Leland makes that move most often late in the game. Figures that Young is a better defensive first baseman. He’s got the lead. He wants his best defensive team out on the field. So, the hit batter has turned out to really cost the Phillies here. The Pirates executing following that opportunity that they were given. Now, it’s a ball and two strikes on Merced. on the corner for a called third strike. And the inning is over. Sloukcom’s first strike out. But some damage done here as the Pirates get a run on one hit with one man left on base. And so we go to the ninth. Pittsburgh ahead four. Pack with a team picture and action shots of all the Phillies players. Compliments of Melon PSFS. Make your plans to come on out Sunday. Call 4631000. See a great ball game. Phillies and the Atlanta Braves. Alejandra Pñena is coming in for Pittsburgh. They keep Kevin Young in the ball game to play first and they move Gary Vo in as their left fielder taking Mlendon out. Pena who started the season on the disabled list making his 20th appearance. Three wins, two losses, a 526 earned run average. He does have four saves for the Pirates. Mentioned Rick White had a bunch of saves early. Pñena of late, the guy who’s been collecting the saves for the Pirates. So, he has four of their team’s 13. He’s only blown one save, four saves in five opportunities. He struck out 16 in his last 11 outings. In the last 13 outings, hitters are only batting 131 against Alejandro. He’s been around, no doubt about that. He’s 34 years of age from the Dominican Republic. Came over here with a free agent contract and uh didn’t help the Pirates at all last year because of arm problems. So, he went in and renegotiated his contract downward. Really an amazing thing for someone to do, but he just felt like he hadn’t given them their money’s worth and he allowed them to add some years to his contract. Well, it’s 5-4 Pittsburgh. And here’s Stalker to lead it off. Tony Longmire in the on deck circle to hit for Quinland. And there’ll be another pinch hitter next for Slope. There’s Longmire. He’s going to bat for Quinland. Stalker double to lead off the seventh inning, but the Phillies could not get him to third base. Check swing foul. 0 and2 on stock. Jim Fosce pretty short-handed on his bench. We mentioned Longmire, a left-handed hitter on the on deck circle. Lenny Dystra back in Philadelphia. He’s not available tonight. Mariano Duncan of course still having the Achilles problem. He’s very very unlikely to be seen. So you’re left after Longmire with Pratt Batist and Inavilia. That’s right. Jordan’s already been used. Jim Faggressi a little short suited in the amount of moves that he can make over there. also while he juggles that double barrel action in the bullpen. Philly’s bullpen that is Doug Jones up and throwing foul back and it appears as if the other one is Mike Williams. It is. So the wheels are turning. Phillies tie the game here. He might bring Williams in. If they take the lead, he’ll bring Jones in. First order of business, tie the game. Way inside. It’s two and two on Stalker leading off the inning. Well, the next time Jimmy comes here, he won’t be short-handed. No, he’ll have plenty. He’ll have 28 players and they’ll all be stars. All stars, that is of the National League variety. He will face then exactly the opposite prog problem trying to get them all in the game or most all of them anyway. Alejandro Pñena has come back from arm surgery. Had a gastrointestinal order at the beginning of this year that kept him on the DL. That’s low. It’s a full count on Stalker. A fine at bat by Stock. Well, he was in that leadoff spot in the seventh inning. was able to get the double to get it started, but then the inability of the Phillies to move him along cost them a run at the time. Tries again to get something started. 3-2 pitch. He walked him. Stalker with a fine at bat. Leads off the inning with a base on balls. So again, Stalker does his part, gets the inning started, gets on base, leaves all three outs behind him yet. So Phillies with opportunities to do a few things. Tony Longmire comes on as the pinch hitter for Tom Quinnland. Longm hitting at 197, no homers, 10 RBI’s. He has five pinch hits, tying for the team lead along with Incavilia. He’s five for 19 as a pinch hitter. He has more pinch hitting appearances than any other member of the ball club. And now in the on deck circle is Kim Batist to hit for Sloum. Stalker with two stolen bases and three tries. Alejandra Pñena lifetime against the Phillies. Three wins, one loss. Was a time that this guy could really throw the ball back in his early Dodger days. Remember that first came up. Great arm. had a hard fast ball, a good hard slider. I think he came up about the same time as Steve How, Tom Neenfur. They all came up together and I I really thought when they first came up that of the three and all three of them were good, I thought he had the best draw stuff of the three. That good hard slider was very impressive. It’s low. One ball, one strike. Phillies are down by a run, but they’re chipping away here in the ninth inning with a runner on, nobody out. Foul tip. Chicago, Florida postponed by rain. We’ve got a Sports Channel game coming up there later in the month. It’s a Wednesday night, the 29th. Yep. Excuse me. That’s the Florida game in Philadelphia. Foul back. June. When are we in Florida? That’s what I’m looking at. There it is. July 27th. July. July 27. I knew it was toward the end of the month. Yeah. Okay. July 27th. Wednesday night game. Not quite as soon as you thought, is it? No. Okay. And don’t get there too early. Don’t leave tomorrow for that one. No. Stalker at first. Nobody out. And nobody up in the Pirate bullpen. Jim Wheeland is entrusting this to Alejandra Pñena. Pirates deep and spread in the outfield trying to cover as much territory as they can. Pñena very concerned with Stalker over at first base. I would think at one ball and two strikes, if you were that concerned that he was going to run, you would pitch out. You’ve got a pitch to play with. Very unlikely that Fosce would run with his hitter behind in the count. There it is. There it goes. That’s why you don’t throw over there. Stalker may take another base. He’s gone to third. That’ll be a two base throwing error on Pñena. Thank you very much. Hitter’s behind in the count. The tying run is on first base. Keep throwing over there. Keep throwing over there when he’s not going to run. If you throw off enough, you will eventually throw one down the right field line. That’s exactly what Alejandro does. He has now moved Stalker not only into scoring position, but to over to third base. Keep throwing off enough. Stalker coming back in. Kevin Young gets his arm, his glove hand tied up in Stalker’s legs. Cannot make the catch. Stock immediately thinking third base again. We talked about the double going hard all the way. Thinks third base all the way. And Alejandro Pñena has just moved him into scoring position. The throw wide and Young and Stalker get tied up right there. So Mr. Pñena has turned what was a mild Philly threat with just a leadoff base runner into a major threat as far as the Phillies are concerned. And now the the Pirates forced to play the infield in with a man on third and nobody out. Remember the count is still one ball and two strikes on Tony Longmire. Fouls it off. Still one and two. And the next batter will be Batist. So, here’s a chance for the Phillies to hopefully tie the ball game and maybe even take a lead here. Now, the Pirate bullpen is getting up. Ballard and Rick White, left-hander and righthander. Oh, called third strike. Longmire can’t believe it. He was bailing and they called it a cold third strike. He wasn’t only bailing, he was pulling his legs out of the way, he felt that ball was so far inside it had potential to hit him. Oh, that’s a bad break for the Phillies. Let’s watch it. Ball well off the plate on the inside. Jerry Meals rings him up, but you can see Don Slot reached completely across to his backhand. Had set up his target on the inside part of the plate, but then reached even farther inside to make the catch. Now Batist who is out has been brought back and in Cavilia is going to come up. Jim Fosce wants this game tied so he’s thinking here about the fly ball that will definitely get the run in here. He’s going to go to Inavilia. In Cavillia has done a nice job as a pinch hitter this year. Five hits and 15 at bats. included in those five hits, one long ball. The only long ball that the Phillies have hit off the bench this year has driven in three runs. Tony Longmar sitting on the bench. He still can’t believe that he’s back there. He thinks the counts would be three and two. There’s Enki at 247 with 10 home runs, 22 runs batted in. Pirates keep the infield in. Pop foul. That’s back out of play. So, it seemed as if early in the game, Jim Leland having a lot of trouble with the umpire’s decisions, but I’ll tell you what, right here in the ninth inning, that’s one decision right there that definitely went in his favor. Look out. One ball, one strike. Pirates clinging to a very tenuous 54 lead here. Pñena causing his own problems with the walk and the throwing error. up and in. Two balls in a strike on pincher Peting Cavilia. Now what the Phillies have to do is capitalize on those mistakes. When you get help from the opposition, take advantage. And this is an area where the Phillies have had problems getting these runners in from third with less than two outs. High ball three. Three and one. Failed a couple of times last night. Failed once tonight. Yet another opportunity here. Kevin Stalker down at third base represents a tying run. Ball four. Well, from the pirate point of view, that at least sets up the double play here, which would get them out of the inning. We’ll have to see how Jim Leland elects to play it defensively. Runners on first and third and one out. Now, Kim Batist is going to come into the game. He’s going to run for Pete Incilia. So Jim Fragosi trying to get some more speed on the bases potentially to break up the double play at second if the Pirates elect to go that way. Billy Hatcher the hitter. Jim Leland is playing the middle of his infield back. Jay Bell and Carlos Garcia playing back at double play depth. King and Young on the corners playing up. They’ll probably go to the plate, but if the ball’s hit in the middle of the field, the two middle infielders going to try to go for a double play. Okay, so Fossi counters with Batist a little more speed to try to break up that hatcherro for four in the game tonight with a six-game hitting streak and one last chance to extend it. Liner to right field caught out there tagging third. He missed the plate. There’s no call. There’s no call. There’s no call. He’s out. He clearly missed the plate. There’s no doubt about that. Forgosi arguing about it, but he missed it. Well, this is going to go on a little bit, I would imagine. Jim Fosce telling his say the umpire’s clearing the rest of the players away. I agree with you though. At least the first look that I saw, it appeared as if Stalker went over the top of Slaugh’s leg. did not touch the plate, went by the plate. Jerry Meals did not make a call, which is normally an indication that, you know, the tag was not made and the player did not touch home plate. Argument’s going to continue down the runway. Don’t know if we’ll get another look at it or not, but it appeared as if Stalker trying to go over the top of Slot. Slot’s leg was still out there blocking the play. Slot was not able to apply the tag. Here we see it right here. Hatcher with the fly ball to right field. Merrced comes over, makes the catch. He gets the throw off. Here comes Stalker. Here comes the throw. Slots got the leg out. Stalker hits Slot. Whoa. Looks like he may have caught the plate on the way by. Maybe he got that top corner. Maybe he got that one corner with his hand, but Meals did not make a play. Slot went back and tried to tag the plate. That is not a force play. He has to tag Stalker. See if we can see it right here on this angle. Here comes Stalker over the top. We’re looking at the right hand. It appears as if the right hand may have caught the corner of home plate. Boy, that is close. There’s dust all over the plate. Body and feet did not touch home plate. His hand may have. Mills was standing right there. Did not make a call initially, which means I did not see him tag the plate. Now, did he touch it there? Is he a Look where Look where Meals is at, though. And look where Stalker is at. His hand, his body is between Meals and where his hand touches the plate. Meals should be back a little bit deeper where he can see the whole play. If the play had taken place out front, he could have seen it. But when he’s right here, Stalker’s hand touches the plate and his body is between Meals and where the plate is tagged. So, possibility that Meals does not see that hand touch the plate. If he touched the plate, he touched it with his right hand. That’s the only thing that he touched it with. the feet and the body did not touch it. This is really an interesting replay because it it shows that his hand was there at the plate, but we can’t tell the the distance. We can’t tell because we can’t tell if it’s down or not. It was over the plate. I don’t know if it was down. If it was down where Meals was at, he could not see it because Stalker’s body was between him and the point where the plate was either touched or not touched. You’re watching Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. Pirates win tonight. Five runs, seven hits, two errors. They leave three. For the Phillies, four runs, eight hits, no errors. They leave six. The winning pitcher, Rabbelloo Manzania. He is two- one. A save for Alejandro Pñena, his fifth. The losing pitcher is Heath Cliff Sloum. His first in a Phillies uniform. He is 4-1. Our Texico star of the game, Jeff King. He had a big ball game. He had a home run in the fourth inning for the Pirates first run of the game and he had a double in the eighth inning to drive in what turned out to be the winning run. So, congratulations to Jeff King on an outstanding ball game. We’ll return to Three River Stadium in Pittsburgh in just a moment. Get ready for Philly’s baseball on Sports Channel. The defending National League champions battle the best in baseball in a lineup you can only see on Sports Channel. Join Andy Muser and Kent Takuli for all the action at home and on the road when the Phillies take the field on Sports Channel. Monday night at 7:30, the Phillies take on the Florida Marlins live from Veteran Stadium right here on Sports Channel, the place to be for regional sports on cable TV.