Phils Coste Past Pirates

The Phillies opened their last of three series in their three city road trip on Friday night against state rivals, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Adam Eaton took the mound hoping to build off his unexpected good start to the 2008 season against the Pirates Zack Duke. The Phils poured the runs on early and often.

In the first, Jason Werth and Chase Utley managed back-to-back walks before Chris Coste doubled a ball off of Duke left field bringing in both runners. In the third Jason Werth hit his fifth home run of the season to right-center field. Pat Burrell doubled to left field and was knocked in by Coste who hit a single to center-field for his third RBI of the night. The Phils tacked on two more runs in the fourth after Eric Bruntlett led off the inning with a single. Brad Harman came to the plate and got his first hit, and RBI of his major league career with a double to left field. Harman would score his first run of his career two batters later thanks to a single by Jason Werth.

The bottom of the fourth was when things started to get sticky of Eaton. The Phils starter managed to get Freddy Sanchez swinging to start off the inning, but followed it up with a long ball to Jason Bay. Ryan Doumit doubled to right and Xavier Nady hit a double of his own to knock in Doumit. Two batters later, Paul Mientkiewicz doubled to right field and Nady came in to score cutting the Phils lead in half. After a walk to Brian Bixler, Chad Durbin was brought in to replace Eaton and managed to get out of the inning without further damage.

In the bottom of the fifth, Durbin managed to get the first two batters out, before serving up a walk to Jason Bay. Ryan Doumit hit his second double of the game giving the Pirates 2nd and 3rd with two outs. Nady came to the plate and sliced a ground ball to left field and both Doumit and Nady came in to score.

Durbin managed to keep the Pirates off the board in the sixth, which became important because of the Pirates bullpens ability to shut down the Phils offense after the fourth inning. Tom Gordon pitched a near flawless 7th, followed up by another fantastic outing by JC Romero in the 8th, and the Phils Brad Lidge came in in the ninth and closed the game out with strikeouts to both Nate Mclouth and Jason Bay.

The Phils send Kyle Kendrick to the mound on Saturday night who look to build on their 13-11 record and end this road trip strong.