Sunday, May 30, 2010

Phillies' anemic offense fails to score again in 1-0 loss to Marlins

Not even 24 hours after making the final out of Roy Halladay's perfect game, Ronny Paulino drove in the only run today to lift the Florida Marlins to a 1-0 victory over the struggling Philadelphia Phillies.

Paulino's sixth-inning single drove in Hanley Ramirez and made a winner of Anibal Sanchez (5-2), who gave up three hits and struck out seven in six 2-3 innings. Leo Nunez pitched a perfect ninth for his 10th save in 12 tries as Florida ended a four-game losing streak.

Jamie Moyer (5-5) gave up one run and four hits in six innings, failing in a bid to join Phil Niekro and Jack Quinn as the only pitchers to win 100 games after turning 40.

He was good -- but not perfect, like Halladay was Saturday night when he became the 20th person to pitch a perfect game in baseball history.

And the Phillies' offense these days is anything but perfect, the sputter now entering a second week.

For the weekend, the Phillies outscored the Marlins 4-3. According to STATS LLC, it was the first time since April 2009 that teams combined to score seven or fewer runs in a three-game set; the Giants and Diamondbacks played three-straight 2-0 games, San Francisco winning two, last April 17-19.

Philadelphia took two of three over the weekend against the Marlins, despite getting only four runs in the series. The power-packed Philly lineup has hit a mere .186 since May 22 and has now gone a season-worst 54 innings -- and counting -- without a home run.

Jayson Werth went 0 for 4 for the Phillies, striking out all four times, the eighth time in his career that's happened. He went down swinging on his first three trips then got caught looking with two runners on against Clay Hensley in the eighth.

The two-time defending NL champions arrived in Florida on Friday having just been shut out for an entire three-game series against the New York Mets.

The Phillies had gone scoreless in 49 of 50 innings before finally breaking through in the fourth against the Marlins on Friday night. And after single runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh to win that game 3-2, the NL East leaders have managed just one run in their last 20 innings -- the unearned one that was all Halladay needed on Saturday night.

From the Associated Press

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