One of the things I have noticed this series is the pitching difference. When Strider attacked the zone in game one, he found success. When Fried pitched, he admitted to not having his best stuff, but he tried to attack the zone best he could and had relative success. When Elder pitched the first two innings, he generally attacked the zone, but generated swings and misses with his slider low. When he got hit, it was because he got too cute imo and tried to be "perfect". He doesn't have the velo to blow guys away so he has to be able to hit his spot to be successful. On the other side, the Phils are just pounding the zone on us and daring us to beat them. What a strategy to employ against our lineup of all lineups! But it's working. I think that's the part that has me so befuddled. It's not like we are chasing a ton of bad pitches, we just aren't hitting the ones in the zone. Plus, they are really hamstringing our righties with inside pitches. It's apparent that they want to own the middle third against our righties and its paying dividends for them. Whatever we thought they were going to do going into the series, they obviously haven't done. It's time our hitters make the adjustment and just focus on getting the ball in play. We did a better job of that last night, generating 10 hits, but we couldn't cash them in. Oddly enough, the only game that we have hit a home run in, we won.
Also, if we ever pitch to Harper again with runners on, it'll be too soon. I'd rather Bohm beat us at this point than Harper. (BTW Bohm won't beat us) Solo shots are fine, but it's these two and three run homers that are really demoralizing. I actually told my wife right before he hit the three run shot that "this is the time when Harper hits a three run homer on us". Once he hit it, she stared at me in disbelief. He's just done it to us way to often to not see it coming anymore.
Chop on!
