Cliff Lee's scoreless streak came to an end, the Blue Jays rallied late, and the Phillies dropped their final game of interleague play to cap an otherwise great weekend of baseball for the best team in the National League.
The story coming into the series finale in Toronto was Cliff Lee, and more specifically, his 32 inning scoreless streak that saw him toss three straight complete game shutouts to cap his unworldly June, where he went 5-0 with an ERA of 0.21.
He kept that streak going with a scoreless inning to start the game against Toronto, and after the offense handed him four runs in the second, courtesy of five hits and RBIs from Ben Francisco, Carlos Ruiz and Jimmy Rollins, it looked like an easy afternoon of baseball for the Phillies.
That was until the third inning, when the Jays began to crawl their way back. Rajai Davis led off the third inning with a triple, and would come home on an RBI groundoutCliff to get the Jays on the board while ending Lee's scoreless streak at 34 innings. The Jays added one run in the fifth on an Aaron Hill RBI single, and another in the sixth on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Juan Rivera to bring them to within one run.
Meanwhile, the Phillies couldn't get anything else going offensively, but appeared to be on the cusp of adding an insurance run in the top of the eighth, when Shane Victorino hit a one-out ground rule double, only to be picked off one one batter later. Naturally, Raul Ibanez followed that up with a double to left, which, had it not been for Victorino's blunder, would have given them a two-run cushion heading into the eighth inning.
As it was, Lee took a one run lead into the bottom half of the frame, but promptly gave it up by allowing a leadoff homer to Eric Thames to tie the game, followed by another solo shot – this time from Jose Bautista – to give the Jays the lead. Not to be outdone, Edwin Encarnacion added a two-run shot of his own to cap the scoring for the Jays while ending Lee's day.
It was all but over for the Phillies, who went down in order in the top of the ninth to drop the series finale to their rivals from above the border to give them a 9-6 record in interleague play this season.
All told, It was an inconsistent showing for the Phillies, who tagged Jays' starter Jo-Jo Reyes for four runs early on, but would be unable to do much else with the bats all afternoon. It's worth noting that this loss marks only the fourth time all season that the Phillies were on the losing end of things when they scored at least four runs.
Despite the loss, the Phillies still hold court in the National League, and are 21 games over .500 for the season, as they head into the final week of the first half.
They'll be heading to Florida for a three game set with the Marlins that is set to kick off on Monday, where they will send Vance Worley (3-1, 2.57) to the hill to face Ricky Nolasco (5-4, 4.08).
