Phillie bats come alive to bail out Hamels

(AP Photo/H. Rumph Jr.)

The one constant in the Phillie rotation, the one thing that was supposed to be solid in an otherwise mediocre pitching staff, failed the Phillies today, but for the first time in a long time, the offense picked up the slack. King Cole Hamels looked more like a pawn when he gave up 9 runs in the 3rd inning of Saturday's game, luckily the offense that had been dormant for so long woke up to put up a huge inning of their own, notching 7 runs in the 5th inning to lead the Phillies to a 10-9 win over the Braves.

Hamels was hit hard as he gave up the 9 runs, but only 4 of them were earned thanks to a pair of errors by Chase Utley and Hamels himself. Fortunately for the Phillies, the Braves did all of their damage in one inning, as the combination of Rudy Seanez, Adam Eaton, Ryan Madsen, Chad Durbin, J.C. Romero and Brad Lidge combined to shut the Braves out for the rest of the game.

Offensively, the Phillies didn't completely rely on the home run to pick up their 10 runs, although Greg Dobbs did hit a 3-run shot. The Phils got hits from each player in the starting line-up except Eric Bruntlett, with Chris Coste leading the team with 3 hits and 3 RBI.

This was yet another win that showed how this Phillie team never gives up. No lead is safe when you have the offensive fire-power that the Phils have, it's just a matter of getting everyone going. The Phils won't score 10 runs every night, though, so something still needs to be done to fix the pitching if they want to go anywhere come October.

Sorry, no highlights this time. The program I usually use, Redlasso, has temporarily shut down due to legal issues.