Leake strong, Cardinals hit 4 homers to rout Phillies

Velasquez’s outing was complete after six innings.

Vince Velasquez (8-5, 4.14 ERA) and Mike Leake (8-9, 4.78 ERA) start in the last of a three-game series between the Philadelphia Phillies (58-66) and the St. Louis Cardinals (65-57) at Citizens Bank Park.

And for all the glimpses of greatness the 24-year-old showed early on, his rocky ending to this year has to be considered alarming.

“I told him to enjoy learning climbing the ladder”, Mackanin said.

“If you can get a few runs on the board and have that much of a lead, then you can go into a little more of an attack mode”, Leake said. “He just has to keep battling and working at it”.

A humbled Velasquez spoke to the media after the game.

“He wasn’t locating his secondary pitches”, Philadelphia manager Pete Mackanin said.

“I’m going to play a round of golf and take my mind off baseball”, he said. But accept the fact that people are going to start timing you and that’s where you have to mix your pitches and make your secondary pitches. The pitcher crossed him up with a two-run double up the right-center field gap. The left-hander gave up one run on five hits with three strikeouts and two walks in six-plus innings.

The start could have been worse.

Hamels (13-4) gave up one run and three hits while striking out 10 in 7⅓ innings. Center fielder Odubel Herrera made a leaping catch against the fence to hold Moss to an RBI sacrifice fly. For the first time in his professional career, he is pitching out of relief since joining the Cardinals.

PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies officially shut down another young pitcher for the season Friday. Probably three or four more starts, I would say, and finish strong.”WALK-OFFS1″. “I have to deal with it and go with the flow and build on it”.

The Phillies acquired Velasquez in the Ken Giles trade with the Houston Astros in December.

The trade looked like a steal when Velasquez struck out 16 San Diego Padres in an April game.

But now it’s apparent why the Astros were willing to trade him. Sunday, the Phillies believe, was part of that growth.

A case could be made Velasquez is wearing down.

Raise your hand if, five months ago when the Phillies were about to leave spring training, you ever envisioned a scenario where Jeanmar Gomez would collect 32 saves in the 2016 season. After all, the most innings that Velasquez has pitched in professional baseball was 124 2/3, split between low-A and high-A ball in 2013. Both he and Mackanin opined that fatigue wasn’t a factor in the recent struggles. Moss almost blew the game open, driving an 0-1 fastball to the wall in center, but Odubel Herrera’s leaping catch resulted in just one run scoring. Because of the brief interleague series in Chicago against the White Sox this week, the Phils will be off Monday, play Tuesday and Wednesday, then have an off-day in NY on Thursday before playing the Mets next weekend. That was early in the season, that was great and one heck of an experience.

The Phillies jumped on Weaver with a pair of runs in the first.

The Phillies went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position. The Redbirds posted nine hits with Jeremy Hazelbaker cracking a two run homer.

Aaron Nola’s season is officially over.

The Phillies did have a chance to win the game in the bottom of the 9th. “After the first at-bat, I didn’t really think (Velasquez) could beat me with his fastball because I wasn’t necessarily looking for it and I got to it easily”. “I’m not figuring it out and haven’t found that turning point yet”.