An Offensive Explosion

Never mind that the Phillies pitching staff surrendered six homers to the Nationals last night, and that their pitching was horrific last night.  Never mind that Brad Lidge's sore knee has put him on the disabled list.

The Phils came from four runs down on two different occasions last night on two grand slam homers.  The first one, a moonshot to center field by Ryan Howard, tied it at 6.  The second, to right field by Raul Ibanez, put the Phils ahead 13-11, which was the final score of the game.  The last time the Phils had two slams in a game was in 2003.  Jimmy Rollins finally broke his terrible slump and had three hits, including two doubles.  I am not worried about the Phils scoring runs.  They do so in bunches, and they have no quit in them.  They're the comeback kids.

I am, however, terribly concerned about the ineffective pitching staff.  Even usually reliable Scott Eyre coughed up two long two-run homers last night.  Joe Blanton was awful as the starter, giving up three homers and six runs in four innings.  He's been just awful in all of his starts so far this season.  Brett Myers has also been extremely erratic so far.  He keeps giving up homers early, but then he settles down and pitches reasonably well.  Cole Hamels has certainly not been himself so far this season, and Chan Ho Park has been hit hard.  The Phils' hurlers need to get it together very quickly, because they can't play all their games against the Washington Nationals.  Sooner or later, they're going to have to play the Mets and the Braves and the Pirates and other teams with solid starting pitching, and that's going to be the real test of whether this team has any chance of repeating.  Rich Dubee needs to do something with this staff, and soon.