By Sam Bush
The Phillies, who had been held to five runs or fewer for 13 consecutive games, broke out for six runs in the first two innings Tuesday night on their way to a 9-7 win over the sputtering Milwaukee Brewers.
Philly sent 10 batters to the plate and scored five runs in the second after the Brewers scored five times in the first.
“It’s very encouraging. What it took was some patience and some good at-bats and big hits with men on base,” Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said. “It was a good offensive night. Obviously, (Kyle Kendrick) needed that support after his first inning. Then he settled in pretty well and the bullpen was outstanding.”
Domonic Brown (photo above) homered and had a two-run single and the Phillies rallied from a big early deficit to outlast the Brewers, who remain in first place in the NL Central despite losing three straight games and seven of their last eight.
“Tonight, (Brown) had a good, level swing,” Sandberg said. “He laid off some tough pitches.”
The Phillies scored five in the second off Brewers starter Wily Peralta (9-6). Ben Revere drove in two runs with a ground-rule double and Chase Utley had a two-run single. Koyie Hill contributed a run-scoring single.
“Having multiple hits in an inning becomes contagious. Everybody was feeding off everybody else,” Sandberg said.
The first-place Brewers have dropped seven of eight games.
Kendrick (4-8) picked up the victory for Philadelphia despite giving up 11 hits and seven earned runs over 5 2-3 innings. He walked two and struck out two.
“Baseball is crazy,” Kendrick said. “The guys picked me up. It wasn’t my best outing, that’s for sure, but the guys swung the bats and picked me up and then the bullpen came into a tough situation and did well.”
Kendrick entered the game with a major league worst 2.94 runs of support per nine innings over his previous 24 starts, a stretch in which he was 3-13. The Phillies had been shut out five times in that stretch and had scored one run or fewer in eight games.
