Pitching woes catch up with Phillies in loss to Orioles By DAVID WREN Assistant Sports Editor The Martinsville Phillies' bullpen, a group that's had its share of ups and downs this season, was definitely on a down note Friday. After getting six well-pitched innings from starter Chad Anderson, the Phillies' bullpen failed to hold a 5-3 lead and the Bluefield Orioles came away with a sweep of their two game series friday at English Field. Martinsville's Bob Kamerschen, who entered the game at the beginning of the seventh inning, was charged with the loss after he allowed five runs all of then earned - in just onethird of an inning. •The bullpen didn't do their job at all today,' said Martinsville manager Roly DeArmas. "I was glad to see Anderson have such a good outing because he needed a good confidence booster. But when the bullpen comes in and blows up like that it just ruins the whole thing." "Recently, our starting pitchers have been doing a good job and we've been able to get some mileage out of them," : said pitching coach Derek Botelho, referring to A two complete games Martinsville Bluefield player slides under starters pitched earlier in the with just six hits. After that one week at Bristol. inning we didn't do anything with "You could blame our bullpen the bats and you're not going to problems tonight on inactivity, but win many games hitting the way our relievers are still throwing on we've been hitting.' the side and they're still getting Anderson, allowed three their work in even if it isn't in a runs on six hits through the first game situation. You like to see six innings, staked the Orioles to a your starters do well and get that 1-0 lead in the top of the second complete game but the bullpen when he gave up back-to-back has to do its job, too. They just singles to Brent Miller and Keith stunk it up tonight.' Schmidt and then a one RBI The Phillies also failed to pro- single to right field catcher duce at the plate, recording just Derek Bell. six hits - four of them in a five- But Bluefield starter Brett run second inning. Benge struggled with his control "The loss 3 was a combination of from the first inning and the both things," DeArmas said. "The Phillies took advantage of his pen didn't do their job but we mistakes with five runs in the secdidn't help our pitchers out any ond off four singles and a pair of * *y * * with a 7.71 ERA in just 4 and twothirds innings of work this season was finally taken out of the game with one out in the second. Brad Tippett relieved Benge and gave up a two-RBI single by Lamar Foster before working his way out of the inning. He then held the Phillies hitless through the seventh when John O'Donoghue relieved him. E Although O'Donoghue allowed a pair of Martinsville singles in the final two frames, the Phillies couldn't get a runner past second base. "Our offense just isn't coming around like we thought it would ... like we hoped it would," said DeArmas. "We've only got three L Martinsville's Winston Wheeler fires home. Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal. walks. The Phillies had threatened to break the game open in the first inning against Benge when the right-hander walked the bases full with just one out. But Martinsville's threat was killed when third baseman Rick Meyer grounded into an inning ending double play. "We should have blown them out in the first two innings because their pitcher was having a lot of trouble," DeArmas said. "You get the bases loaded with one out and then that double play kills it. We finally got him (Benge) in the second but we should have put him away earlier and we should have had more runs." Benge - who entered the game guys (Foster, Jeff Borgese and Jorge Pascual) who've played with any consistency this season. No one else has done anything with the bats." Bluefield chipped away at the Phillies' 5-1 lead with a pair of runs in third off shortstop Scott Sprick's homer to rightfield. But Martinsville had the game in hand until Kamerschen came on in relief to start the seventh. A leadoff double by Bluefield third baseman Steve Dimarco and an RBI single by Bell brought the Orioles to within a run and Bell tied the game on right fielder Jason Alstead's single to center. By the time reliever Winston Wheeler was able to snuff the seventh-inning uprising, Bluefield had taken a 9-5 advantage. The Orioles then added another run in the ninth on Sprick's single and a three base throwing error by Meyer. Tippett picked up the win for the Orioles with 5⅔ innings of one-hit, seven-strikeout relief. Schmidt paced Bluefield offensively with three hits and two RBI while Alstead had three singles and Bell a pair of singles and two RBI. Pascual and Foster had two hits apiece for the Phillies. The loss dropped Martinsville to 9-20 on the year