The Phillies concluded their battles versus the state of Ohio with a stunning 3-2 victory over the NL Central Cincinnati Reds.  The series definitely had its share of ups and downs as the Phillies experienced 16 scoreless innings before Chase Utley’s RBI single in the bottom of the eighth yesterday.  The Phillies now sit at 21-23 going into a stretch of games where they face the Marlins, Nationals, and Red Sox in a unique home and home series.  A positive win loss record in the next 10 games would put the Phillies in a good position in the NL East going into the month of June.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Expos 3
Phillies 9

WP: Curt Schilling (5-1)
LP: Chris Nabholz (3-4)

Fresh off a .500 road trip with three-game stops in Atlanta and Miami, the Phillies returned home for a three-game set in NL East play against the Montreal Expos. The Phillies and Expos would play a tight season series with some tension-filled moments in September, but on this night in May it would be all Phillies.

Jonathan Pettibone has been a pleasant surprise to Phillies fans since making his debut back on April 22^nd.  He improved to 3-0 on the season and was the first Phillies pitcher since Gavin Floyd to start his career at 3-0.  The 22 year old right hander pitched 6 2/3 innings which was his longest outing to date.  He gave 2 runs in the second on a Michael Brantley single that scored Nick Swisher and Carlos Santana.  That was all the Indians would get on this night in South Philadelphia as the Phillies won 6-2.

The Phillies finally found a way to beat a team from Ohio last night, bringing the team to within just 3.5 games of the first place Atlanta Braves. You would think the bar would be set a little higher for this team, especially given the payroll set up for this year's roster. Critics of the Phillies are quick to point out the massive contracts to aging players, and that is fair. It is also documented by Sports Illustrated.

Sports Illustrated released their 2013 Fortunate 50, a listing of the top 50 professional athletes according to value - consisting of salary, winnings, bonuses and endorsements. This year's list includes four members of your Philadelphia Phillies: Cliff Lee (No. 17), Ryan Howard (No. 25), Roy Halladay (No. 39) and Cole Hamels (No. 44).

I like to take a look at the in-depth numbers behind the scenes for my web sites, including Macho Row. From time to time I think I woudl like to share some of the most interesting search results leading readers to this little piece of the Phillies blogosphere with you. Maybe you will find some of them as amusing as I do.

Here is a look at the most recent top searches bringing people to Macho Row. Are you one of them?

1. Mitch Williams Twitter - Yes, the lovable closer from the 1993 Phillies is in dee don Twitter, and he tweets a lot.

2. Ryan Howard strikeouts 2013 - After a rough road swing through the NL West, your Phillies firstbaseman has struck out 43 times this season, fourth most in the National League. However, over the last seven days, no player in baseball has struck out more than Howard (13 times).

3. Who's on first 2013 - Naturally.

4. 1993 Phillies

5. 1993 Phillies highlight - Like this one?

6. april 2013 comments on ryan howard - The fans are not exactly happy with Howard, it seems.

7. Bobby Abreu last year's average - 

8. Bryce Harper pegged - Somebody was looking for the time Cole Hamels felt a need to teach Bryce Harper a lesson, it seems.

9. Fire Sam Perlozzo - Perlozzo was removed from the coaching staff at the end of the 2012 season, so I'm not sure what someone is thinking out there right now.

Follow Macho Row on Twitter and Facebook.

Kyle Kendrick signed a two-year contract in February 2012. If he continues to pitch the way he has recently, he could be lining up another two-year deal in the upcoming offseason.

I was supportive of Kendrick's two-year deal when it was signed and despite some ups and downs in 2012 I remained steady in my belief that he had earned his role on the team. Last nigth in San Francisco Kendrick once again came up big on the mound by exhibiting a level of confidence that has been growing by the start this season. Kendrick tossed seven complete innings, allowing just two runs to the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants and picking up his team-leading fourth win.

Sometimes random questions pop in to my head when I am browsing the Internet. Recently, while browsing Facebook and coming across a Phillies-related image, which I shared on the Macho Row Facebook page, I was curious how the Phillies measured up on Facebook compared to the rest of Major League Baseball.

After looking up some Facebook pages I learned the Phillies are one of ten franchises with at least 1 million Facebook likes. Compared to the rest of the league, the Phillies rank ninth in Like totals, edging out the Detroit Tigers and just a sliver behind the NL East rival Atlanta Braves.

As you might expect, no team has more likes than the New York Yankees, who blow away the competition with over 6 million likes, nearly doubling the Boston Red Sox (the only other team with more than 1.8 million likes).

The Phillies are among the leaders when it comes to Twitter though. The Phillies are second only to the Yankees among MLB franchises when it comes to Twitter followers. The Phillies and Yankees are the only franchises with over 460,000 followers (Yankees at 889,192 and Phillies with 758,249 followers).

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies going from worst to first and winning the National League pennant. All season long we will take a look back at each game of the 1993 season.

Last Game: Giants 11, Phillies 2

Cardinals 3
Phillies 4

WP: Tommy Greene (3-0)
LP: Joe Magrane (2-3)
SV: Mitch Williams (12)

After ending a west coast road trip by being pounded by the San Francisco Giants, the NL East leading Philadelphia Phillies took a day off before returning home to Veterans Stadium for a division series with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals got to Phillies starter Tommy Greene early but the Phillies would battle back to pick up their 20th win of the season, becoming the first team in Major League Baseball to reach the 20-win mark in the 1993 season.

That's more like it. It seems like it has been a while since the Phillies got that so-called complete game effort from the team, but last night in San Francisco they gave it. Cliff Lee was in command on the mound, Domonic Brown delivered the first McCovey Cove blast in Phillies history and the defense did not disappoint in the field for the most part. The result was a 6-2 victory over the defending World Series champions to open up a west coast swing.

The trick of course is to not be sucked in to the idea that the Phillie that played Monday night have all of a sudden turned things around. Coming off a four-game split with the lowly Miami Marlins at home and still sitting below .500 means it will take more than one fun night by the bay to convince me the Phillies have flipped a switch, metaphorically speaking. Those who know me will tell you I'm generally a positive-thinking person and I tend to focus on the positives wherever possible while keeping in balance with the negatives.

I'm not going to focus on any negatives from last night, because overall I am not sure where they existed outside of Jimmy Rollins going 0-for-4 in the leadoff spot (he did tack on a sacrifice fly in the ninth). So instead, let's just watch Domonic Brown's monster home run to right field in the fifth inning again...

Sometimes I wonder if my enthusiasm for interleague play has been influenced by what seems to be a shortcoming for the Phillies. It seems the Phillies are awful in interleague play every time it comes around, and thanks to the new format in baseball we get to have this torture dragging throughout the season rather than get it in one, two or three lump sums.

It's not quite a reach. The Phillies have an all-time winning record against just three teams in the American League; Texas Rangers (6-3), Chicago White Sox (5-4) and Cleveland Indians (6-5 after dropping two games the past two nights). It looked pretty clear that the last two nights the Phillies did not belong on the same field as the Indians, who improved to 12-13 as a result after bashing the Phillies to the combined score of 20-2 with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee taking the mound. Say what you will about pitchers getting unlucky in some spots (some of that is fair to suggest), but the pitching came up small from start to finish in Cleveland. Perhaps more frustrating was another two nights of poor base running and lack of offense when needed the most.