Well, that didn't go so well

Needing to win this series to gain some ground in the Wild Card Race, the Nationals were totally outclassed last night by the Phillies. The Phillies dominated every phase of the game and won 7-1.

John Halama's luck finally ran out. He had pitched well as a National after being pounded as a Red Sox, but it all came apart last night for John. He gave up six runs on seven hits and three walks in only three innings. The big blow was David Bell's grand slam in the third inning.

The odd thing was that Halama seemed to be pitching fairly well and, throughout the third, seemed on the verge of getting out of the inning unscathed. After Jimmy Rollins struck out, Jason Michaels singled to center. Halama then struck out Bobby Abreu, which is no easy task. With two outs, Halama worked the count to 3-2 on Pat Burrell. Burrell fouled off two pitches and then hit a ground ball to short that looked like it would be an easy out. Unfortunately, Deivi Cruz couldn't get to the ball because he was playing Burrell to pull the ball and was way over toward third. Now there were runners at first and second with two outs. With the count 2-2 on Chase Utley, Halama then threw two pitches that weren't close to being strikes and walked Utley to load the bases.

Up to the plate came Bell, who is having an atrocious year, but was hitting .371 against lefties. In retrospect, Halama had been trying throughout the entire inning to paint the corners of the strike zone. Some would say that he was being too fine with his pitches, but a soft tosser like Halama tries to be so fine because the alternative is to groove one for a guy who hits it into the Tidal Basin. That's exactly what Halama did, and, although Bell didn't hit it that far, he hit a grand slam that put the game out of reach for the Nationals.

We've been critical of Frank Robinson's failure to take out pitchers who are past the point of effectiveness, but that criticism doesn't reallly apply to last night's game. Halama seemed to be OK; the problem is that a guy like Halama is always just this side of disaster, meaning that he shouldn't be starting in the first place and should be limited to spot relief stints.

In any event, the game was effectively over because the Nationals were unable to do much of anything with Vincente Padilla. When it was 1-1 in the bottom of the second with two outs and runners on first and second, a big rally was possible. We say "possible" because with two outs the Nationals usually aren't able to do much; there's are consequences to having the worst offense in baseball and an inability to sustain a rally with two outs is one of them. The Nationals managed only two hits (one of them a double by Ryan Zimmerman) over the next four innings,

The Nationals are now four games back of the Phillies in the Wild Card Race. The point now is obvious: they need to win the last two games of this series.