Phillies Notebook: Phillies' Chad Billingsley sees progress in loss

THE NUMBERS may have looked similar, but to Chad Billingsley, yesterday's 7-4 loss to the Mets felt like progress.

Five days earlier, the 30-year-old righthander made his first start in nearly 2 calendar years, a layoff necessitated by a pair of elbow surgeries that ended his career with the Dodgers. In his first game back, he allowed six runs (five earned) in five innings against the Braves, including home runs by Freddie Freeman and Kelly Johnson. Yesterday, the big blast came from Curtis Granderson, who crushed a fastball off a billboard between the first and second seating decks in right-centerfield for a two-run home run that gave the Mets a 3-2 lead in the fifth inning. Up to that point, Billingsley had held New York to a run in four innings.

"I definitely felt a little more comfortable out there than the first time," said Billingsley, who hit his first homer of the season, and third of his career, for the first run of the game in the third inning. "My nerves were a little bit better today. Just one mistake to Curtis, I wish I could have that one back, but I felt a lot more comfortable out there."

Billingsley faced two batters in the sixth, but was replaced by Justin De Fratus after allowing doubles to Wilmer Flores and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, the second of which drove in a run. His final line: five innings; eight hits, four for extra bases; five runs; one walk; three strikeouts.

The Phillies held leads of 1-0 and 2-1 before falling behind 5-2 in the sixth. They rallied for a couple of runs in the seventh but could not get a shutdown inning from Jeanmar Gomez, who allowed a pair of runs in the eighth.

Billingsley's velocity sat between 90 and 92 mph. He said he felt that he improved the location of his fastball to his glove side; lefthanded hitters have crushed him thus far, mostly when he attempts to go inside. Lefties are 12-for-24 with three home runs and two doubles off Billingsley in his two starts.

"It's just a little over 2 years and my mindset is to keep going back out there, keep getting comfortable and keep progressing," Billingsley said. "Gaining confidence just with your pitches and your arm and continue to get better. And I think today was a little bit better and I'm going to continue to look forward to 5 days from now."

Ryne Sandberg defended his decision to call on Gomez for a second inning of work in the ninth. Setup man Ken Giles has pitched in just one game in the last six days, an 11-pitch outing against the Mets on May 8.

"It was a minus situation," Sandberg said, referring to the fact that the Phillies were trailing. "I hate to use some of these guys in minus situations."

Of course, the Phillies haven't exactly seen an overabundance of plus situations this season.

Third baseman Cody Asche snapped an 0-for-23 streak with a double that fueled the Phillies' seventh-inning rally. An RBI single by Cesar Hernandez cut their deficit to 5-3, and a sacrifice fly by Jeff Francoeur made it 5-4. A heads-up play by Hernandez to take second on the sacrifice fly put the tying run in scoring position with one out. Mets lefty Alex Torres then took over and proceeded to walk Ben Revere on four pitches and hit Chase Utley with a 1-2 pitch to load the bases. But Ryan Howard grounded out on a first-pitch fastball.

Ryne Sandberg said he had no problem with Howard swinging first pitch.

Mets starter Bartolo Colon struck out six batters without issuing a walk, giving him 40 strikeouts and just one walk in 46 1/3 innings. He has not walked a batter in 40 1/3 innings, the second-longest stretch in club history.

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