Ryan Howard moved into fifth place and passed Greg Luzinski on the all time Phillies team home run list as he belted his second bomb in as many games and drove in three runs overall to lead the team to a 8 to 4 victory over the Washington Nationals. 

Cole Hamels pitched five innings to earn his first win of 2010 and was followed by Jose Contreras, Chad Durbin, Dannys Baez and Ryan Madson on the hill to close the contest.  Madson collected the last four outs to earn his first save of the season.

The series concludes tommorrow with a day game as Kyle Kendrick takes the hill for the Phillies.

Chatter

Nelson Figuerora was signed off waivers from the New York Mets and will join the team as the long reliever.  Drew Carpenter will be optioned back to Triple A Lehigh Valley to resume his role in the starting rotation there.  The Phillies lack depth in starting pitching, Figuerora can provision some of that if needed, they also want Carpenter to work in a regular rotation so that he is ready if needed.  Josh Fogg is also available from Lehigh Valley along with Joe Savery however the team hopes to not have to dig that deep at least for now.

Great to start against the Nationals, more Phillies phans in the Washington stands than Nats, guess it is a football town!