Jeremy Hellickson reads and he listens.
So he knew exactly how long it had been since a Phillies starting pitcher gave the team a complete seven innings.
Twenty-one games had gone by. Almost a month on the calendar had passed since Jerad Eickhoff lasted seven innings in Miami.
The veteran right-hander went out and stopped the streak, helping the Phillies to a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday night (see Instant Replay).
“I hear it and read it,” Hellickson said. “I don’t know about the rest of the guys. It’s nothing we think about, we’ve had a few games where we’ve been cruising and something happens. But it was good to save the bullpen a little tonight.”
His seven strong innings saved the bullpen one night after an 11-inning game. Hellickson, making his first start since leaving his Aug. 10 start with a lower-oblique injury, allowed two runs on seven hits. He struck out eight and walked one.
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“Just what the doctor ordered,” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said.
“You’ve got a guy like Hellickson that can give you the seven innings that we needed. He probably could’ve given us another inning, but we’ve got a couple of good guys in the bullpen to finish it off.”
Jeanmar Gomez, a night after blowing a save, allowed a one-out single before getting Jedd Gyorko, Friday night's ninth-inning hero, to ground into a game-ending double play.
Hector Neris was lights out again in the eighth inning, striking out the side.
“It was deja vu in that ninth inning,” Mackanin said. “But it turned out a little differently.”
Hellickson struck out the side in the first inning, working around a one-out double from Stephen Piscotty.
He ran into a bit of trouble in the third. A leadoff single by opposing pitcher Luke Weaver was followed by a game-tying, two-run home run off the bat of Jeremy Hazelbaker. He allowed a double by Matt Carpenter in the same inning but worked out of trouble.
The Phillies jumped out to a lead when Cesar Hernandez, back in the starting lineup after being out of it for two games (right foot), hit his first career leadoff home run. Hernandez went 3 for 4, scoring twice while finishing a triple shy of the cycle.
In the same inning, Tommy Joseph worked an 11-pitch at-bat that ended with a strikeout and the second out of the inning. But Weaver - making his second career start - was being forced to work, and a Maikel Franco double off the glove of a diving Hazelbaker led to a RBI single from Cameron Rupp.
Franco’s two-out, RBI single in the bottom of the fifth that scored Hernandez, who led off the inning with a double, gave the Phillies a 3-2 lead.
An inning later, Aaron Altherr’s fourth home run gave the Phillies a 4-2 advantage.
That was plenty for Hellickson, who got better as the game went on.
In the top of the sixth, with a runner on base, Hellickson blew a 3-2 fastball by Jhonny Peralta to end the inning.
He struck out his final batter, Greg Garcia, to end the seventh, retiring eight of the last nine batters he faced.
Good defense behind him, including double plays to end the second and fifth innings, helped Hellickson get out of a few jams.
Hellickson improved to 10-7 on the year. In three starts since the Phillies decided to keep him at the trade deadline, he has allowed six earned runs in 18 2/3 innings pitched (2.89 ERA) with 18 strikeouts against three walks.
“I think the biggest thing was just getting ahead, that’s an aggressive lineup,” Hellickson said. “So just getting ahead and making quality 0-0 pitches, I was able to throw my off-speed (pitches) for strikes and keep my fastball down for the most part.”
Which, in turn, led to a lower pitch count. And, for the first time in nearly a month, a seven-inning performance.
