Philadelphia Phillies at Milwaukee Brewers – ESPN Sunday Night Baseball
Philadelphia improved to an NL-best 12-7 on the road on Saturday, with a 10-6 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park. The Phillies also improved their May record to 10-3 and record against NL Central teams to a solid 8-1 mark. Offensively the team leads all major league teams with 21 home runs in May. Overall this season, the Phillies rank second among all NL teams in homers (43). With a win on Sunday night, Philadelphia can improve upon its 12-7 record on the road, as the team is hitting .272 and averaging 5.56 runs per game away from Citizens Bank Park.
Phillies SP Cole Hamels is 3-2 with a 4.53 ERA in seven starts this season. The left-hander has tallied an impressive 49 strikeouts in 43.2 innings, but has also allowed 67 runners to reach base in that span. He is looking to collect his first career victory at Miller Park, going 0-1 with a 5.75 ERA in his three previous tries. Hamels has thrived during the second month of the season historically; posting an eye-popping 11-2 record and 4.12 ERA in 21 starts in May.
Milwaukee continues to falter at Miller Park, as Saturday’s loss drops the Brewers to a dismal 4-13 at home. The Brewers are winless in the first five games of their current six-game homestand that ends tonight. In facing a left-handed starter tonight, the team will rely heavily on the right-handed bats of OF Ryan Braun and IF Casey McGehee. The two have combined for 60 RBIs this season, which ranks third in the Majors for teammates. The Brewers have been dominated by the National League East this season, going 1-7 and being outscored by 35 runs.
Brewers SP Doug Davis gets ready to toe the rubber in his eighth start of the season, with the Brewers going 3-4 in the process. Davis is 2-2 with a 3.71 ERA in eight career starts against Philadelphia, making one of those starts in a 12-3 losing effort at Citizens Bank Park, allowing six runs (5ER) in just five innings of work. In his second stint with Milwaukee in his career, the left-hander is still trying to capture a win at Miller Park this season. He is 0-2 with a 5.06 ERA in two home games this season, as he’s issued 11 walks in just 16 innings of work.
Bettors will surely be salivating over a Philadelphia team that has posted 19 runs in the first two games of this series. In searching for any type of value, the run-line is playable due to the Phillies winning their three games on the road trip by four runs in each.
The linesmaker is taking notice of Milwaukee’s troubles at home finally, making them a home underdog for the fourth time in the last six games. The Brewers are 2-5 (-265) as a home dog so far in 2010.
