Cliff Lee and Ryan Howard take game four all by themselves

Written by Mike Mariano | 25 August 2009

Cliff Lee is kept rolling through the NL and Ryan Howard kept up his recent power surge.  Game four of the Mets/Phillies series was a tour-de-force from two of the Phillies hottest players.  Cliff Lee improved to 5-0 as a Phillie and Ryan Howard hit his 6th and 7th homers of his last ten games (giving him 34 on the year).

Cliff went seven strong and didn’t allow an earned run.  Only 12-9 overall, Cliff Lee continues his second half push for the Cy Young striking out 5 and allowing 6 hits.  Cliff’s ERA in Philadelphia is now a paltry 0.68.  Other mound news, Brad Lidge threw a perfect ninth.

Ryan Howard supplied all the offense Cliff would need hitting a 3-run bomb in the first inning and a two-run bomb in the second.  Strangely those were the only two hits that the Phillies has with RISP the whole day going 2-11.

For the Mets, Bobby Parnell sucks again and somehow Gary Sheffield hit a triple.  That ends the series at 3-1 in favor of the Phillies and with Johan’s most recent start getting scratched, Bud Selig is considering optioning them down to AA.