The Philadelphia Phillies hammered the Chicago Cubs by a final score of 9 to 1 on an oppressively hot afternoon at Wrigley. Local temperatures hovered just shy of 100-degrees for the majority of the game, while Chicago heat indexes soared into the triple digits.
The Phillies, undaunted by the sweltering heat, gave Cubs' starting pitcher Ryan Dempster far more than he could handle during the early innings. A Ryan Howard single to left and a Shane Victorino groundout into a fielder's choice scored Michael Martinez and Chase Utley, respectively, to put the visiting Phils up 2-0 after the first.
Just one inning later, the flood gates would open.
With two down in the top of the second, pitcher Vance Worley cracked a double to reach base and extend what was assumed to be a closed inning. From there, the Phillies would tack on on three more runs thanks to a Jimmy Rollins double, Michael Martinez single, Michael Martinez stolen base and a Chase Utley double.
After surrendering five runs on 64 pitches through only two innings, Dempster would survive just one more frame. Thankfully, the Phils took that extra inning to tag Dempster for additional run thanks to a two-out double from Brian Schneider. By the time the book was closed on Dempster, he bore responsibility for 6 earned on 7 hits via a whopping 86 pitches in just 3 innings of work.
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The Phillies would later add three more on the Cubs' bullpen thanks to Chase Utley's second double of the day and two Jimmy Rollins solo shots, each one batted from a different side of the plate.
To put it in perspective, only four times in Phillies history has a batter knocked two home runs in the same game batting from the right and left. With his performance today, Jimmy Rollins is responsible for two of those four occasions, a somewhat unsurprising fact. An infinitely more surprising fact, the last Phillie to complete such a feat besides Rollins—Tomás Orlando Pérez in 2001.
The obvious leaders of the offense this afternoon, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley finished the day a combined 5-8 with 5 RBIs and 5 runs scored.
Not to be lost in their impressive shuffle, however, was the play of the rapidly-improving Michael Martinez. Since July 1st, Martinez has failed to play in just three games while filling in for the injured Placido Polanco. Over that eleven game stretch, with today's game excluded from his monthly total, Martinez is batting a hefty .297 in July, consequently raising his season average an impressive .30 points. During today's game in Chicago, Martinez reached base twice, scored twice, stole a bag and knocked in a run.
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Speaking of not getting lost in the shuffle, or getting buried at the bottom of the post, Vance Worley more than held up his end of the bargain. Despite the aforementioned temperatures, Worley gave up just one hit over his first six shutout innings. Though a rough start to the seventh would see Vance load the bases with no outs and ultimately give up a run, he would work his way out of the jam thanks to a nifty save by Jimmy Rollins and a timely Jimmy to Chase to Ryan double play. His final line in the sweltering Chicago heat: 8.0 IP, 4H, 1ER, 2BB, 7K, on 111 pitches.
From there, manager Charlie Manuel would opt to turn the ball over to Ryan Madson. In his third appearance since returning from the disabled list, Mad Dog needed just eight pitches to force three pop ups to end the ninth.
We hope you enjoyed our coverage from Chicago over the past few days. For today's game, E took advantage a well-deserved day off, drank a beer or two and watched the action from the stands. In honor of his decision, and Vance Worley's gem of an outing, we leave you with this clip from the Chicago-based Ferris Bueller's Day Off: