Phillies extend winning streak to eight

While the Phillies were closing out a seven-game homestand Thursday, Roy Oswalt was aboard a Houston-to-Washington flight so he would be ready to put his talented and expensive right arm on display for his new team Friday against the Nationals.

Oswalt landed on the fastest runway, the one where a hot pursuit of the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves is taking place.

The Phillies extended their winning streak to eight games Thursday with a 3-2 win over Arizona in 11 innings at Citizens Bank Park.

Coupled with Atlanta's loss to Washington earlier, the Phillies pulled to within 21/2 games of the Braves. Last Friday, the Phils were seven games behind Atlanta.

For the second straight game, it was the bottom of the lineup that got the job done for the Phillies, who have won 11 in a row at home. With one out in the 11th inning, Wilson Valdez singled home Cody Ransom with the winning run.

Valdez, who had three hits, also turned two double plays to help starter Kyle Kendrick make it into the seventh inning for his second straight quality start.

"We've been winning close games and that's good because you learn a lot about how to play," manager Charlie Manuel said. "But we can make it a little better."

The Phils certainly could have made it better in the ninth inning, when they squandered a 2-1 lead.

Rather than give inconsistent Brad Lidge the save opportunity, Manuel played the matchup game. It didn't go as planned because Arizona's Justin Upton began the ninth with a double. Manuel then turned to lefty J.C. Romero to face the Diamondbacks' lefty hitters. But Adam LaRoche singled and Upton scored the tying run on a grounder by Miguel Montero.

Valdez, playing shortstop, made a great pivot for an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded.

Afterward, Manuel reiterated that Lidge, who pitched a 1-2-3 10th inning, is his closer.

"I've always said he's our closer, and he is," Manuel said. "I don't want to be playing games with him. I kind of like what we did tonight with this matchup stuff, but at the same time I don't plan on doing it a whole lot. More than likely, he's going to be starting the ninth inning. In my mind, when you get right down to it, he's always been our closer."

Kendrick gave the Phils a second straight quality start. He played the part of an escape artist early in the game.

The righthander needed 30 pitches to get out of the first inning, but he made it through after Arizona had runners on first and second with one out. Kendrick walked the leadoff hitters in the second and third innings but slipped away unharmed.

After the fourth inning, in which Raul Ibanez threw out Montero trying to stretch a base hit into a double, Kendrick appeared to take a long look at the section of the right-field wall that keeps pitch counts. It said he'd thrown 67 pitches, so his night was already a bit long.

But Kendrick found a rhythm and eased through the next two innings before Montero made up for his baserunning gaffe with a one-out homer in the seventh. Kendrick has had problems with lefthanded hitters, who were batting .320 against him, and he had thrown 102 pitches, so Manuel went to his bullpen.

Kendrick allowed one run in 61/3 innings. He has had two solid starts since he was recalled from triple-A Lehigh Valley on July 24, five days after he lost his spot in the rotation when the Cardinals roughed him up for three homers in one inning on July 19.

Lefthander Joe Saunders was having a smoother time of it than Kendrick until Carlos Ruiz knocked in his fifth run of the homestand with a hard-hit double to score Ransom in the fifth.

Saunders made his first start for the Diamondbacks since he was acquired last week in a deal that sent righthander Dan Haren to the Angels, where he went 16-7 and was named to the AL all-star team in 2008. He was 6-10 and had a 4.62 ERA with Los Angeles before he was dealt.