Sweet

Obviously, Cole Hamels forgot to check in yesterday to read my post. How else to explain his "failure" to pitch a complete-game shutout as requested?

Oh, well, so he was a pitch short. No harm, Cole. A poll of readers of this space concluded overwhelmingly a 2-1 complete-game victory over the Giants in San Francisco is acceptable every time out.

With the victory, the Phils stretched their win streak to nine games, six of them coming on the current Western road trip. The three straight wins over the Giants are particularly sweet given the animosity and rivalry that has developed between the two clubs. There was no repeat of Friday night's rumble. Indeed, the game moved along tautly but mostly uneventfully.

Make no mistake about it, however. With the three straight wins the Phils made a huge statement. The Giants can throw tremendous pitching at them, but the Phils have much stronger hitting now with the arrival of Hunter Pence. The road to the World Series may still run through San Francisco, but it seems much less daunting after this series. (The road probably runs through Milwaukee for those who have been paying attention to the Brewers run.)