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Injury-riddled Phillies look to keep up with Padres

Aug 25, 2007 - 2:35 PM San Diego (69-58) at Philadelphia (66-61) 7:05 pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) - Looking to keep themselves within shouting distance in the division and wild card races, the Philadelphia Phillies continue their three-game set against the San Diego Padres on Saturday.

Injuries play a role in every team's season, but the Phillies have nearly half a roster - 12 players - on the disabled list with the most notable of those walking wounded being ace Cole Hamels and All-Star second baseman Chase Utley.

Since Utley last played on July 26, the Phillies are 14-12, unable to make up any of the six-game gap between them and the National League East leaders, the New York Mets (72-55).

Meanwhile, the Padres have done their best to turn around what had been a woeful offense. San Diego ranks 12th with 570 runs, largely due to a .249 team batting average. However, the Padres scored a season-high in runs in their 14-3 rout of the Phillies in the series opener, extending a trend in which the team has scored a combined 30 runs during their three-game winning streak.

Clay Hensley (2-3, 6.70 ERA) certainly would not mind the run support as goes for wins in consecutive games for the first time since last September. In his last turn on August 16 in a 11-9 win against Colorado, he surrendered six runs and six hits over five innings.

The righthander is 1-0 with a 3.15 ERA in six career games - two starts - against the Phillies.

Philadelphia will turn to Kyle Lohse (7-12, 4.61), who will look to pick up his second win in five starts as a member of the Phillies since getting traded from Cincinnati. He did not factor into the decision in his last start on Sunday - an 8-4 loss to the Pirates - in which he surrendered four runs and six hits over 6 2/3 innings.

While he was still with the Reds, Lohse made two starts against San Diego with disastrous results, going 0-2 with an 11.42 ERA.