Fans got a rare chance to watch the Phillies, as the visiting team, at batting practice. I noticed that the former IronPigs guys hung together. Yesterday, J.A. Happ, Kyle Kendrick, and Mike Zagurski, in the clump of players on the left, were joined by (non-'Pig) Joe Blanton when Nelson Figueroa opted to shag balls in center field. Thanks to all of the injuries, the IronPigs call-ups have been in the middle of everything this past week. What's there to say? Jamie Moyer is having a remarkable year. Take out the one game in Boston and he's having a stupendous season. On a very hot and humid afternoon today, he pitched seven innings, throwing 104 pitches, 70 of them for strikes. He got the win, too, in an 11-2 drubbing of the Blue Jays, who scored their two on a home run by Vernon Wells. That homer gave Moyer the lead for most home runs, at 506, ever surrendered in the Majors. Jim Jackson on the radio postgame show recounted a conversation that the late Robin Roberts, the previous record holder, had with Moyer last year. The Hall of Fame pitcher told Moyer that when he broke the record to do it in a win.
The Blue Jays did not help their cause when a botched call (oh, Joe West) in the seventh put Ryan Howard on with one out. The Jays went on to make three errors, leading to four Phillies' runs and upping the score to 11-2. The Phillies again scored a heap of runs without benefit of the long ball, instead getting a diet of hits from just about everyone, including a key double by IronPig call-up Dane Sardinha and three hits from Ben Francisco, who was stinging the ball. But Moyer was just terrific. At the end of the second inning, he became the 40th pitcher in Major League history to throw 4,000 innings. It's remarkable.
