Well the Phils needed that one for sure. They avoided losing four straight and kept themselves alive in this Nationals series! They'll need every advantage they can get in the NL East.
Andrew Painter was pretty clutch for the Phillies in his MLB debut! He had a very solid start as he got through 5 1/3 innings and struck out 8 batters and only allowed 1 run. Pretty clean overall! It seems like he's going to be here to stay. He was throwing well into the upper 90's and as I said yesterday, with him being 6'7" I can only imagine how fast that feels for batters. After the Phillies gave up a combined 21 runs in the previous two games, Andrew Painter's performance was just a beautiful sight.
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The Phillies offense is still not gelling overall at this point as they only put up three runs yesterday. They scraped together seven hits which is not completely terrible I guess and Kyle Schwarber hit his second homer of the year. They're averaging a pretty pitiful 3.4 runs a game through five games. I don't know what the perfect runs per game a good offense should have but I'm thinking in a perfect world that rate should be somewhere around 5.5 runs per game.
But hey a win's a win and I'll take it!
Cristopher Sánchez gets his second start of the season which is great. The Phils need another good start from him. Until Painter yesterday, the Phillies haven't had a quality start since Sánchez himself on Opening day!
There's rain sorta kinda in the vicinity of Philly but it should mostly come after the game's conclusion.
Phillies and Sixers today to begin April. Good times!