47 year old lefthander Jamie Moyer cruised through five innings on Wednesday before his magic eluded him in a 6 run Atlanta sixth inning which included 2 homers and a bases-clearing double.  For four innings Phillies starter Moyer and 25 year old Kris Medlen dueled, although the Phils threatened briefly in the first loading the bases with 2 outs before tying in the second on doubles by 2nd baseman Wilson Valdez and shortstop Jimmy Rollins.  1st baseman Ryan Howard belted a 2 out, 2 run homer in the fifth to give the Phils a brief 3-1 lead before the sixth inning roof cave-in.  The Phils scored single runs in the seventh and eighth before closer Billy Wagner made short work of them in the ninth to record his 2nd save of the series as a 6 run sixth sinks Moyer and the Phillies by a 7-5 score with the Braves taking 2 of the 3 game series.

With the loss, the Phils dropped to 6 games behind NL East division-leading Atlanta while remaining 3 games behind the 2nd place Mets who lost a close one to Cincinnati.

After leadoff hitter 2nd baseman Martin Prado opened the game against Moyer by belting his 2nd homer in 2 games, the Phillies had a run-scoring opportunity in the bottom of the first.   Leadoff hitter Jimmy Rollins opened the Phils first with a double, his 1st of 2 doubles.  After centerfielder Shane Victorino went down on a bunt grounder, Medlen walked leftfielder Raul Ibanez.  After Howard went down on strikes, Medlen hit rightfielder Jayson Werth to load the bases.  But Medlen got 3rd baseman Greg Dobbs to ground out to shortstop to end the threat.

After Prado’s leadoff homer, Moyer retired the next 15 of 16 Braves, with only rightfielder Omar Infante reaching on a fourth inning opening single, before Atlanta’s sixth inning explosion.

Meanwhile, the Phils tied the game in the second as both Wilson Valdez and Rollins doubled with Rollins getting an RBI.  Howard gave the Phils a shortlived 3-1 lead in the fifth when he followed a 2 out walk to Ibanez with a shot to leftfield.

Then came the 6 run cave-in which featured Prado’s 2nd homer of the game, a solo shot, a single, double and walk followed by catcher Brian McCann’s bases-clearing double.  Leftfielder Martin Diaz followed McCann with a 2 run blast to centerfield.  All of this occurred with 1 out, as Moyer struck out Medlen to open the inning, and before Manuel made a move to go out to get Moyer.  In all, the Braves sent 10 men to the plate in the sixth with Danys Baez finally striking out Medlen to end the suffering.

2 Phillies relievers held the Braves in check the rest of the way only allowing 2 hits in the final three innings.  Medlen gave up Victorino’s seventh inning homer and reliever Takashi Saito surrendered pinch hitter Ben Francisco’s RBI double in the eighth before Wagner put the Phils down with nary a whimper in the ninth to end it.

To read more on this most recent fiasco, click here. 

To view the scores of all of Wednesday’s games, click here.

Cincinnati comes to Citizen’s Bank Park on Thursday to begin what shapes up as a crucial 4 game series with the Phils.  A repeat performance by the Phils, i.e. another series loss could leave them with an under .500 record.  Perhaps even a series split could throw the Phils totally out of contention going into All Star break.  Kyle Kendrick is slated to pitch the opener opposed by Johnny Cueto in a rematch of their June 29th match-up.

To view all of Thursday’s games, click here.

Add to:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. | del.icio.us | digg | Furl | Reddit | YahooMyWeb |

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 3:17 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.