Phillies Beat Mets on Moyer’s Strong Outing
|
|
|
|
|
46 year old Phillies veteran lefthander Jamie Moyer showed on Saturday why he’s still pitching after 23 seasons; befuddling Met hitters with slow-speed junk which nicks the corners and gets outs. Moyer went 6 1/3 innings giving up a run on 5 hits as the Phils got just enough offense against Fernando Nieve. The bullpen shut down the boys from Flushing with only 2 Mets reaching in the final 2 2/3 innings as the Phillies beat the Mets by a 4-1 score on Moyer’s strong outing.
With their 2nd win over the Mets, the Phils maintained a 1 game lead in the NL East over the 2nd place Florida Marlins who beat Pittsburgh, while the Mets fell into a 3rd place tie with Atlanta who lost to Washington.
With the win, the Phillies clinched only their 3rd home series win of the season and Moyer tied all-time great Carl Hubbell for 42nd place on the all time wins list with 253 wins and they are tied for 10th spot for most wins among left-handers. Moyer also passed Grover Alexander, pitching in his 600th career start, and is 21st on that all-time list.
The Phils capitalized on Nieve’s wildness keeping him in jams through four of his 5.2 innings pitched. Nieve gave out 6 walks while striking out 3 in giving up 4 runs to the Phils, 3 of them earned in losing his 2nd game of the season. Once again, shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who has been 5 for 11 in his last 3 games and walked twice, singled in 2 runs in the Phillies’ fourth inning and centerfielder Shane Victorino went 3 for 5 with a sixth inning RBI and scored the 1st run as the Phils went up 1-0 in the first inning on rightfielder Jayson Werth’s RBI sacrifice fly.
The Mets scored their lone run in the fifth inning on 3 straight 2 out singles as Nieve drove in the lone Mets run himself with a single to leftfield in the only troublesome inning Moyer faced. With 1 Mets run in and with runners on 1st and 2nd base, Moyer got 2nd baseman Luis Castillo to ground out to the pitcher to end the inning.
Moyer left with 1 out and none on in the seventh inning and 4 relievers finished up the final 2 2/3 inning with only 2 Mets reaching, 1 of them on a hit batsman. Closer Brad Lidge made short work of the Mets in the ninth striking out 2, with a ground out to 1st base in-between, to record his 15th save.
AP sports writer Rob Maaddi notes these salient points on Moyer’s outing for Yahoo sports:
“I really haven’t figured anything out,” Moyer said. “It’s a puzzle. I’m trying to piece it together and get good results.”
Moyer didn’t allow a hit until Alex Cora singled leading off the fourth. The soft-tossing lefty baffled the Mets’ hitters with his usual assortment of offspeed pitches and a fastball that barely reaches 80 mph. Moyer only had one strikeout and several outs were hit hard. He lowered his ERA to 5.72.
“They put the ball in play quickly,” Moyer said. “I just try to go out, feel good and make good pitches.”
For the scores of all of Saturday’s games, click here.
In Sunday’s final, Joe Blanton opposes Mets’ ace lefthander Johan Santana. Could there be a Phillies sweep in the works?
Following the Mets into Citizens Bank Park will be the Cincinnati Reds who play 4 games, followed by the Pittsburgh Pirates for 3 followed by the 3 day All Star break on July 13-15th.
For all of Sunday’s games, click here.
del.icio.us |
digg |
Furl |
Reddit |
YahooMyWeb |