Get Out the Brooms!

The Phillies extended their lead in the National League East to a full game. The Phillies completed a three game sweep against the Washington Nationals with their 8-4 win.

Kyle Kendrick earned his 9th win. He pitched 6.2 innings allowing just 2 earned runs on 7 hits. He walked just one, and hit two batters. He struck out 4.

The Phillies offense roughed up John Lannan in his 5.2 innings of work. He struck out 6, but gave up 8 runs, 6 of them earned. He didn't get the best defense behind him, as the Nationals made 3 errors. Though none of the errors were on him, first baseman Kory Castro looked lost at first as he couldn't come up with a few throws.

Jason Werth, and Jimmy Rollins each homered. Ryan Howard also added an RBI. Shane Victorino extended his hitting streak to 11 games. Everybody in the Phillies starting lineup, except Kendrick, each had at least one hit.

Before today's game started, we would have to flash back to last year. John Lannan hit Chase Utley with a pitch last year. Utley would suffer a broken hand. The next batter, Ryan Howard was hit by a pitch. While Utley's HBP didn't look intentional, Ryan Howard's did. That led to Lannan being ejected in his first major league start.

Almost exactly one year later, today, John Lannan hit Victorino. Kyle Kendrick hit batters Ryan Zimmerman and Ronnie Belliard. All looked unintentional as the pitchers were pitching inside.

Ryan Zimmerman looked as if he could of been in the same positition Utley was a year ago. He was hit in the hand, and jumped out of the batters box in discomfort. The camera showed his hand which looked swollen. After he scored a run, he was taken out of the game. X-Rays were negative.

Belliard wasn't too happy about getting hit by his pitch. That led to Jesus Colome intentionally hitting Chase Utley in the 7th inning. Utley knew it was on purpose, and just gave a little look to Colome as he walked down the line. Warnings were issued. Nothing happened after that, but it could be the start of some bad blood between the two teams.