September 30, 2009

Phillies Win the NL East

The Philadelphia Phillies take down the Astros 10-3, winning the NL East title for the third year in a row. Pedro Martinez lasted four innings, giving up all three Houston runs, while Kyle Kendrick came in with three shutout innings to get the win. The offense knocked out nine hits, six for extra bases that along with six walks helped increase their league leading runs per game to 5.1.

The Phillies took over first place on May 30th, and never looked back. Florida tied them briefly on July 2nd, but about two weeks later they had gone 12-1, took a 6 1/2 game lead in the division and never looked back. At the trade deadline they picked up Cliff Lee to go with a young J.A. Happ and an improving Cole Hamels. They even managed to survive a late season meltdown by Brad Lidge.

Ruben Amaro did a nice job in his first year as GM. The Jamine Moyer contract is probably a dud, but Raul Ibanez proved to be a great replacement for Pat Burrell, and the trade for Cliff Lee when everyone expected him to go for the more expensive Roy Halladay was genius. The Phillies are now in a very good position to repeat as World Champions. They’ve pulled ahead of the Cardinals for second best record in the league, meaning they’ll probably play the Rockies instead of the Dodgers in the first round and have home field advantage.

Congratulations to the Phillies on a fine season.

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