NL East Daily Recap from 7-2-09

A Great play at home

The Atlanta Braves put offseason acquisition Javier Vazquez on the mound tonight following a stellar outting by young Jair Jurrjens last night going for a three game sweep of the first place Phillies.  Vazquez couldn’t nearly what Jurrjens did, but still kept the Phillies scoreless until the sixth inning, when they got two off of him to tie the game, he left durign that inning receiving a no decision.

In the eighth inning, the play pictured above occured and it was a very gutsy, but at the same time scary play by Atlanta relief pitcher Mike Gonzalez(3-0).  On a wild pitch, Jayson Werth attempted to score what would have been the go-ahead run from third base.  Brian McCann threw the ball back to Gonzalez covering home who with his pitching arm, placed a tag on Werth’s hand to end the inning.  In the bottom of the inning, Matt Diaz doubled home the winning run, and Garret Anderson added a two run home run for good measure off struggling Philly reliever Ryan Madson(2-4).  Rafael Soriano worked a perfect ninth on only six pitches for his seventh save of the year for a 5-2 win and a series sweep of the Phils.  For more information on the Braves, visit The Braves Baseball Blog.

The Phillies got another solid outting from J.A. Happ as he went seven innings giving up seven hits and the only damaging hit, a two run home run to Casey Kotchman.  Jimmy Rollins was able to get a couple hits to break his huge hitless streak, which was approaching thiry at bats before his hit. Be sure to stop by Phillies Phandom for more Philly related info.

The Phillies will hope to regroup with the Mets coming to town, and the Braves travel to the Nations Capital to take on the Nationals this weekend.  Check back to NLEC tomorrow for our NL East Series Preview.

Tim Redding had nothing today

On a day where the Mets were traveling to Pittsburgh for a makeup game from early June, the rain decided to play a factor again.  There were two rain delays early, one that delayed the start and the other after only two Mets batters, but this game was played, for a long time.  Mets starter Tim Redding couldn’t get out of the third inning while giving up five earned runs in only 2.1 innings.  Lucky for him, the Mets bats woke up today against Pirates starter Paul Maholm and chased him in 4.1 innings while he gave up six runs, giving the Mets  a lead.  The Mets took an 8-6 lead into the ninth inning and gave the ball to their usually sure thing closer, Francisco Rodriguez, but not this time.  He gave up a two run homer to Adam LaRoche to send the game to extra innings.  Fernando Tatis scored the winning run on another Ryan Church clutch hit, and Francisco Rodriguez(2-2) worked the tenth inning to secure the win for the Mets.  The Mets will head to Philadelphia now for a three game series beginning tomorrow night with Livan Hernandez facing Rodrigo Lopez for the Phils, check back tomorrow for a NLEC Series preview.  For more Mets news though, be sure to go to The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

The Pirates offense was up to the task today, even if the pitching wasnt providing twelve hits and eight runs in the losing effort.  Matt Capps(1-4) took the loss in the tenth inning for Pittsburgh.