The Official Site of Chase Utley

Mon, Jun 29th 2009, 10:21

Werth, Utley help Phillies win last series vs. AL

Asking a baseball player to root out the underlying causes for the various idiosyncracies of a season is often like asking an ocean wave to explain why it rises and falls and, eventually, crashes onto the beach. Somewhere, there is a reason, the explanation of which is better left to folks who don’t have to concern themselves with the actual task at hand.

And so it was with a shrug that Jayson Werth answered a question regarding his remarkable production against his old Blue Jays team, which yesterday helped propel the Phillies to their second straight win over Toronto, this time 5-4 in come-from-behind fashion.

“I don’t have an answer for that,” said Werth, who reached base in five plate appearances yesterday, extending his streak to 10 straight, as the Phillies won their first back-to-back games, and their first series, since June 10-11 against the Mets. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not like I enjoy playing against them more than anybody else.”

Whatever it is, the Phillies were glad to have it this weekend, when Werth and Chase Utley helped deliver them from the ashes of a potentially disastrous trip through interleague play and salvage their standing atop the National League East.

Werth, who broke in with the Blue Jays and played a total of 41 games for them in 2002 and ’03, hit two home runs in the Phillies’ 10-0 victory Saturday.

Yesterday, Utley went 2-for-4 with a double and a two-run triple as the Phillies overcame an early 4-1 deficit to improve to 39-34.

Utley is 8-for-20 against the Blue Jays this season, and Werth is 9-for-21 with five home runs and nine RBI.

Both were key factors in the four-run fourth inning the Phillies produced against lefthander Brian Tallet. With two runs already in and Carlos Ruiz on first base, Werth hit a two-out single to left and Utley followed with a triple to right-center that drove in the tying and go-ahead runs.

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