Phillies win home opener; lose Rollins, Werth to minor injuries

(Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

It almost seems like nothing can stop the Phillies from winning this season. In their home opener on Wednesday against the Nationals, the Phils overcame a middling performance by a starting pitcher, an early offensive lull and injuries to two key players to still win the game, 7-4.

The injuries to Jimmy Rollins and Jayson Werth are likely to be the biggest story from the game. Rollins was announced as being in the starting lineup but was a late scratch due to a right calf strain. In his place, Juan Castro stepped in and played shortstop and led off. Werth's injury happened during the game; he left the game with hip soreness in the 7th after singling in the 6th. The Phillies have an off day tomorrow which will be good timing for each, though there is already talk that Rollins will have an MRI. I'm not one to speculate on injuries but both sound minor; we'll have to wait and hear about the results of Rollins' MRI but I would guess that neither player misses significant time.

As for the action on the field, it was really a tale of two innings. Cole Hamels looked solid for most of his 5 and 2/3rds innings but ran into issues in the 4th where he gave up three runs on a few weak hits by the Nationals, including a bloop double by pitcher Jason Marquis. While the good news for Hamels is that he wasn't hit particularly hard, the bad news was that he always seems to run into trouble at least once a game where he should have gotten out of an inning before any damage was done.

The Phillies offense also did most of their work in one inning as they scored 5 runs in the 5th. Juan Castro took advantage of the absence of Rollins and hit a one run double which was followed by a two run single by Placido Polanco and a two run home run by Chase Utley. For a Phillies offense that sleepwalked through the first three innings, they sure made up for Hamels' hiccup in a hurry.

The Phillies keep just keep on rolling through April. Sure, they haven't played a team with any real major league talent yet but it's still nice to see the Phillies beating up on teams they should have no problem with. You can only play the teams that are on your schedule and the Phillies are taking advantage of some weak opponents to help them get off to a great start. Hopefully it all continues when they play Florida and Atlanta next week.