Kyle Kendrick

CINCINNATI - In the first two games of the Reds series, Phillies starting pitchers allowed two earned runs in 14 innings. The Phils lost both games. Although the offense was nearly nonexistent on the six-game road trip, the rotation rebounded from a tough first week of the season. After Kyle Kendrick's seven shutout innings on Tuesday, Phillies starters had posted seven straight quality starts. They had a 1.66 ERA over those seven games. It was a remarkable turnaround from the season's first seven games, when they sported a 7.68 ERA. But then John Lannan took the mound following the completion of Tuesday's suspended game and put an emphatic end to the rotation's streak while the offense continued its embarrassingly long run of ineffectiveness.

CINCINNATI - The skies opened, but Phillippe Aumont continued throwing his warm-up pitches. Phillies players looked around at one another as the few remaining fans scrambled for cover. Finally, in the ninth inning Tuesday, Wally Bell relented. The home-plate umpire waved his right hand and the tarp was unfurled at 10:48 p.m. The second and final rain delay commenced. Nothing was decided in 81/2 innings at Great American Ballpark. No one scored. No one won. No one lost. A 0-0 game was suspended just as the bottom of the ninth was about to start.

CINCINNATI - The first pitch at Great American Ball Park was delivered by Homer Bailey at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday. It came 1 hour, 20 minutes after originally scheduled, following a rain delay when the tarp was pulled off and then placed back on the field. The process was about as exciting and tiresome as being asked to sit through the first six innings of watching the Phillies' offense at work. Except on Tuesday, the offense gave their fans an added bonus: three more innings of flyouts, groundouts and strikeouts.

Phillies righthander Kyle Kendrick managed to overcome a few obstacles, including some early ineffectiveness and a 27-minute rain delay. On a night when he clearly wasn't at his best, Kendrick found a way to prosper. Kendrick gutted out six innings and earned the win in a 7-3 victory over the New York Mets Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park. "He was in trouble and got out of it, and that was big for him," manager Charlie Manuel said. "That was probably what [allowed him to go]

BEFORE THE RAIN delay in the bottom of the fourth inning, Kyle Kendrick labored. After the 27-minute stoppage in play was over, Kendrick moved slower than the line at your local DMV. Kendrick worked his way in and out of jams, watched the Mets foul off one pitch after another and took his time getting himself collected before just about every pitch he threw on Wednesday night. Kendrick's second start of the season wasn't pretty. But when you looked up at the end of it, it was effective, a 7-3 win over the Mets.

Nothing triggers gross overreaction and total amnesia more than a bad start to the baseball season. By now, we should be used to it. This core group of Phillies has been frustrating fans in the embryonic stages of the season ever since Charlie Manuel took over as manager in 2005. Who can forget 2007's 2-7 start? Or the 4-5 records to start the 2008 and 2009 seasons? Four wins and five losses is again where the Phillies stand after nine games following a 7-3 win over the New York Mets on Wednesday night that should at least lower the dangerously high anxiety levels around here through Thursday's off day. The answer about who can forget those other slow starts apparently is almost everybody.

Back when the world was young and all things were possible - this would be somewhere around the second inning of the 2013 home opener on Friday - leftfielder Domonic Brown was one of the reasons the Phillies will be able to bridge the gap between their yesterdays and their tomorrows. Everyone in the stands would have agreed with that as Brown trotted around the bases following a leadoff home run in the second, having deposited a fastball from Kansas City starter Wade Davis into the stands.

THE PHILLIES feel good enough about Kyle Kendrick's place on the pitching staff that they gave him a guaranteed $7.5 million before he threw a pitch in spring training 14 months ago, and they penciled him into the rotation at the end of the 2012 season. But there remains a clear distinction between the top half of the Phillies' rotation and the back half of it that begins with Kendrick. The All-Stars are given a little more leeway while the Kendricks and Lannans are more likely to get the quicker hooks.

After Friday's 13-4 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the Phillies' home opener, righthander Kyle Kendrick voiced his displeasure at being lifted with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth inning. The Phillies led, 4-2, but then Alex Gordon greeted reliever Jeremy Horst with a three-run triple. When Charlie Manuel was asked his opinion about Kendrick's complaint, the Phillies manager had a strong response. "I don't care what he says," Manuel said before Saturday's game at Citizens Bank Park against the Royals.

ATLANTA - After seven weeks of spring training and three games in Atlanta, the Phillies finally are going home. Oh, sure, they were home last weekend for their "On Deck" series with the Toronto Blue Jays, but those games didn't count. Since when does a team play its first home games of a season against an interleague opponent? Oops. Almost forgot that the Phillies' bitter interleague rivalry with the Kansas City Royals will be renewed at Citizens Bank Park on Friday afternoon with Kyle Kendrick going against Wade Davis.