Padres win a squeaker against Phils and Hamels

SAN DIEGO - Cole Hamels knew he needed to be almost perfect last night at Petco Park.

He was.

But he needed to be flawless. He allowed just two hits and a run in seven innings against the San Diego Padres, but fell short in a 1-0 loss that dropped the Phillies to 47-48 - six games behind the New York Mets in the National League East.

Hamels lost because he faced a pitcher who can be more dominant: Chris Young.

"He's a tough guy," Hamels said. "There's a reason he's leading the league in ERA. Coming into the game, I knew that. I just tried to execute every single opportunity I had just so I wouldn't give up too many runs. I think when you give up one run, that definitely puts your team in a good position to win. But unfortunately when you play against Chris Young, it doesn't work that way."

Young allowed two hits and no runs in seven innings. The Padres have won five 1-0 games this season and Young has pitched each one.

Young improved to 9-3 with a 1.85 ERA, the best earned run average in baseball. He also has a 0.73 home ERA, which is the best mark in baseball.

"He definitely has no fear," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "He came right at us. That might be the best game we've had pitched against us this year."

Young had retired 10 of the first 11 batters he faced when Chase Utley hit a one-out single in the fourth inning. Utley stole second base and Ryan Howard walked to put runners on first and second.

But Young worked out of it. He got Aaron Rowand to fly out to center and Pat Burrell to ground out to shortstop to end the inning.

Rowand and Burrell have been hot. Rowand became the first player in baseball history to have two games with four extra-base hits in the same month. He had hit .615 (16 for 26) with eight doubles, two home runs and seven RBIs since the all-star break. Burrell had hit .485 (16 for 33) with two doubles, four home runs and 12 RBIs in his previous 11 games.

But as Rowand had said after Wednesday's 5-4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, "Good pitching beats good hitting."

Utley doubled to right with two outs in the sixth and Howard worked a 10-pitch at-bat for a walk to again put runners on first and second, but Rowand flied out to right to end the threat.

Howard worked well against Young. He walked in his first three plate appearances, making Young throw him 28 pitches in the process. Young threw 28 of his first 100 pitches to Howard alone.

Howard came away impressed. Young's fastball hovers between 88 and 91 m.p.h., but it looks much faster because of his height and delivery.

"You've got to wait," Howard said. "Because he's 6-foot-10, you have to let it get out of his hand to try to see where it's going to be. By the time you do that, it's pretty much on you. You have to try to give the ball a chance to come down. He was out there basically just throwing fastballs and mixing in some curveballs here and there. You've got to respect how tall and how long he is. With him short-arming it, it gets on you quick. You've got to respect how high that ball is coming out."

Hamels allowed a one-out single to center field to Geoff Blum in the third inning. Young's sacrifice bunt moved him to second and Brian Giles' double to left scored Blum.

Hamels regretted his 2-2 change-up to Blum.

"I was trying to set him up for that pitch," Hamels said. "I didn't set him up the way I would have liked. I got a little overconfident knowing that I could get guys out with my change-up and guys would roll it over, which he did. He just hit it a little too hard right up the middle. It's tough. When you do have a pitch that you know you can get guys out, that's when you get a little overconfident and cocky and things happen like that."