Phillies Down Pads, 5-3 for Fourth Straight Win

  Larry Bowa, Mike Lieberthal & Jimmy Rollins on Bruce Chen's performance.

As Limp Bizkit might say -- the Phils just "Keep on Rollin' "

Bruce Chen pitched five solid innings, Travis Lee and Scott Rolen homered, and Ricky Bottalico pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save since September 23, 1998 to lift the Phillies to a 5-3 victory over the Padres in the first game of a seven-game West Coast swing.

After getting swept by the Cubs in a doubleheader at Wrigley Field, the Phils have reeled off four straight wins and improved to 12-6, 3½ games ahead of the second-place Expos.

	This might look strange, but Marlon Anderson somehow flipped the ball to Jimmy Rollins for the force at second after making a great diving stop in the top of the seventh inning.

But they're not getting too excited.

"We're coming off a sweep of the Braves, and we normally don't do well on the West Coast, so this is a good start," Mike Lieberthal said.

"We just try to play one game at a time," Andy Reid, er, Larry Bowa said.

Well, at least someone is looking ahead.

"We're not satisfied until we have a ring on our finger," Jimmy Rollins said with a smirk. "One-hundred something more games to go."

For the second straight game, Bobby Abreu and Rollins combined to get the Phils on the board in the first. Abreu's single to center drove in Rollins, who was hit by a pitch, and the Phils led 1-0.

After Lieberthal singled to lead-off the second, Lee drilled Adam Eaton's 2-0 fastball for his second home run of the season to give the Phils a 3-0 lead.

"I was looking for it, and I got it," Lee said. "I put a good swing on it, and it ended up in the seats."

In the bottom of the second, Bubba Trammell cut the lead to 3-1 when he crushed a homer to left-center. The Phils got the run right back as Rolen hit his third home run of the season, a solo shot off the scoreboard in left with two outs in the top of the fourth.

The Phillies ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Phil Nevin hit a routine fly ball to right that Abreu would have caught easily if he had called off Marlon Anderson. Abreu didn't, the two collided slightly, and the ball dropped for an error that was for some reason changed to a double.

Trammell followed with a ground ball to third that handcuffed Rolen for an error. After walking Mike Darr to load the bases, Chen regrouped. He struck out Malvern Prep's Ben Davis looking with a fastball on the outside corner and K'd Donaldo Mendez swinging to end the inning.

	Jimmy Rollins slides home with the Phils' first run on a first-inning single by Bobby Abreu.

"Chen pitched a great game," Bowa said. "We got him in a little trouble. We should have made a couple of plays, and we didn't, but he reached back and got out of a big jam. That was a big inning for us -- it kind of changed the momentum a little bit."

Nevin led off the sixth with a single to end Chen's night after 102 pitches. Chen (1-1) allowed a run and three hits while walking three and striking out seven.

"He threw strikes, he had a good breaking ball working, a good changeup, he pitched well," said Lieberthal, who drove in the Phils' fifth run with an RBI single. "He just made one mistake."

"I felt like I had real good command of my pitches, especially my off-speed pitches," Chen said. "It's always nice to get that first [win]."

Vicente Padilla took over and caught a break when Trammell hit a grounder to Rollins who looked for the force at second but threw wide to Anderson. Nevin however stumbled over the bag, and Anderson alertly tagged him out. Anderson and Rollins then turned a 4-6-3 double play on a grounder by Darr to end the inning.

In the top of the seventh, Anderson made the defensive highlight of the game. With Mendez on first, pinch-hitter Dave Magadan (he's still playing?) hit a bullet up the middle. Anderson dove, snagged it on one-hop and somehow tossed it over his head to Rollins for the force at second.

The Padres cut the lead to 5-3 in the eighth. With two outs, Trammell hit a looper to shallow center that skipped by a diving Doug Glanville. Abreu booted it before getting it into the infield, and Klesko, who had walked, scored from first. Darr followed by lining an RBI double to right-center.

Bottalico replaced Padilla and looked to have Davis struck out on a 2-2 pitch, but the high strike wasn't called, and Davis walked one pitch later. Bottalico rebounded to retire pinch-hitter Wiki Gonzalez on a grounder to Rolen to end the inning.

Right now, the Phillies are doing everything it takes to win ballgames: Pitching, defense and just enough hitting.

"Everybody is feeling real good," Rollins said. "We could be doing some things a little better. There are a couple of guys that aren't really crushing the ball right now that are going to be important down the line. Right now, we're finding ways to win, and that's what winning is all about."

"As long as our pitching holds up like this -- Bruce goes out and gives us six strong innings, and our bullpen comes in and just dominates, as long as we keep clicking, it's going to be a fun season," Lee said.

"We got good pitching, timely hitting, Marlon Anderson made a couple of great plays at second, it's a team effort," Bowa said. "Everybody is contributing."

Randy Wolf goes for his first win Tuesday night when the Phils face Woody Williams in the middle game of the three-game series which can be seen on CN8 at 10:05.

Andy Schwartz
ComcastSportsNet.com