Rollins, Phils Best Braves

Jimmy Rollins had 3 hits and scored 2 runs and Ryan Howard hit a 3-run bomb in the 3rd inning as the Phils beat the Atlanta Braves by a score of 7 - 3. The win gives the Phillies their first series win in a month, when they last played the Atlanta Braves.

Adam Eaton started, and went into the 6th inning before loading the bases with no one out and giving way to Chad Durbin, who promptly threw a double-play ball to Jeff Francoeur and got Mark Kotsay looking to clean up Eaton's mess.

Rollins not only made his presence felt with the bat, but also in the field. In the 5th inning, Rollins made a diving stop on ball going up the middle, which should have been a basehit. Instead, Rollins made the acrobatic play, flipped the ball to Utley at second, and Utley made the turn to Howard to complete a very pretty doubleplay that kept the Braves at bay.

Pat Burrell also tacked on his 21st home run of the year and Utley, Pedro Feliz, and Chris Coste all had 2 hits each.

The series concludes tonite at 7pm in a pretty good matchup between Cole Hamels (8 - 5) vs. Jair Jurrjens (8 - 3) that will be on CSN-TV.

Notes/Observations

- I could have done without all of the excitement in the 9th inning, with Ryan Howard botching 2 ground balls and Brad Lidge giving up a very long, very dangerous foul ball to Mark Teixeira that came within a few feet of tying the game in the 9th inning.

- By the way: Howard now has 9 errors at first base. I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable. He is a DH waiting to happen.

- Also: They probably shouldn't have had Lidge in the game two nights in a row in non-save situations, but it's just as well they did with Howard kicking the ball all over the infield. Fortunately, the Phils have Hamels going today, so hopefully, the Phils won't need Lidge's services today.

- Solid work by Chad Durbin last night; 2 innings of hitless, runless relief. Last night's appearance guarentees he's not the starter on Saturday, right?

- Brett Myers started for the IronPigs last night. Meh. He took the loss after working 5 innings and throwing 100 pitches.

Picture: yahoo.com (REUTERS/Tami Chappell (UNITED STATES))