wrong end of a comeback

The Phillies took a 3-0 lead in the fourth this afternoon, on a three-run homer by back-up catcher Dane Sardinha but the Reds, the team with the most comeback wins in the majors, chipped away at Roy Halladay, getting one in the sixth, one in the seventh, and two in the eighth. The Phillies had men on but did nothing. Halladay struck out 10 while surrendering a career-high 13 hits. Oh, my. In the end the Reds won 4-3 to take two of three in what has been so far a major bummer of a road trip.

Word should come down tomorrow on the extent of the Utley and Polanco injuries. Meanwhile, it's on to beautiful PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where the Phillies always struggle.

a big win in cincinnati

The Phillie Phanatic was also on hand at Coca-Cola Park last night. Between innings he and fan-favorite Andy Tracy did a very funny, very good musical skit.

When I left the 'Pigs game, the Phillies were leading the Reds in Cincinnati 6-1, thanks to three-run homers first from Brian Schneider, then from Wilson Valdez. By the time I got to the car, it was 6-3. I got home in time for the inexplicable ninth. Brad Lidge got two outs, then ended up giving up a three-run homer to Joey Votto, which tied the game. Oi vey. Ryan Howard, however, led off the 10th with a double, Charlie Manuel got ejected by C.B. Bucknor, and everybody else hit as the Phillies quickly put three on the board to retake the lead at 9-6. J.C. Romero then came in for a mercifully quick save. Lidge apologized afterwards for falling in love with his slider. Whatever, at least for last night. The Phillies very much needed this game and they got it.

Word is that the Phillies had someone from the front office scouting the Mariners' game in NY last night. Lee was pitching (a complete game) but dream on if you think he was the draw. More likely the team is already looking into some infield help. Chase Utley is likely out long-term and Placido Polanco is a question.

domonic brown sparkles in home debut

Domonic Brown coasts home on a sac fly in the third inning last night.

J.A. Happ tosses some warm-up pitches between innings last night.

Domonic Brown stole the show in his home debut last night with Lehigh Valley. In the third inning he legged out a single, almost immediately stole second, then advanced to third on the catcher's throwing error, and cruised home on a sac fly by Neil Sellers. Textbook perfect. In the seventh he initiated a 9-5 double play. With two outs in the ninth, he singled, then scored the winning run on a single by Neil Sellers. I left after the first game of a doubleheader and missed seeing the two-run homer Brown hit in game two. All in all, Brown made the transition from Reading to Lehigh Valley look ridiculous.

J.A. Happ pitched his first Triple-A rehab assignment last night, looking a bit sharper than he had in his Double-A stints but still lacking velocity and throwing an awful lot of balls. Happ threw for four+ innings, allowing two runs on six hits, walking four and striking out four. With all the bad news on the injury front, some good news would be welcome.

Because of the injuries to the big club, there were several changes below. One of note was the release of Willy Taveras. (That was quick.) His speed thrilled but little else about his game did. Give Rich Thompson the chance, willya!

double whammy: utley and polanco to dl

Chase Utley and Placido Polanco were both placed on the DL today. Utley reportedly has a thumb sprain, but the extent of the injury is yet unknown. Polanco has had recurring elbow problems since being drilled in the elbow by Tim Hudson in an April game with the Braves. Greg Dobbs, an adventure at third, has been recalled from Lehigh Valley. So has Brian Bocock, a defensive dazzler at short who cannot hit a lick.

It's going to be some kind of scary line-up for at least the next two weeks. Not to mention the defense. Time for Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez to step it up big time. I suppose that Victorino will go back to lead-off, where he has struggled, and Rollins to the third spot, followed by Howard, Werth, and Ibanez. Then Dobbs? Schneider in the eighth spot, then the pitcher. That leaves Valdez batting second. Or flip-flop Dobbs and Valdez? It looks ugly no matter how you do it. I'd rather have Rollins batting lead-off, every other regular more or less in place, and just let the bottom of the order be the black hole that it indefensibly is.

Utley and Polanco join Carlos Ruiz, Ryan Madson, J.A. Happ, Chad Durbin, and Antonio Bastardo on the DL. Just one of those things.

utley injures thumb

Just to season the prevailing heat and humidity with some doom and gloom, Chase Utley injured his right thumb in the fourth inning while sliding into second last night in Cincinnati. Juan Castro pinch-hit for him in the ninth, the first ominous sign that something was amiss. As Utley recently said, It's not an injury if you can play through it. Utley is the ultimate play-through-it kind of guy. That he took himself out of the game does not bode well. He will have an MRI today.

Worse, the injury happened in a 7-3 loss. The Phillies never quite looked in this one. Schneider was playing for the injured Ruiz and Valdez for the injured Polance, which left the bottom third of the order looking bereft. Even listening to the game, it was too hot and sticky here to get too worked up about it. Until, that is, the ninth inning.

The Phillies have had their real line-up intact and functioning for only a handful of games this season. All I know is that anytime Utley is out of the line-up it's a scary thing for Phillies' fans. The injury list just keeps getting longer.

For the winning Reds, Scott Rolen hit the 300th home run of his career. Half of those came while he was a Phillie. (Why, oh why, did Rolen have to be so sour?) The Reds were looking last night like the Phillies of recent times, with lots of energetic offense and sturdy defense.

more boys at the ballpark

On Thursday it was hoagies at the park. On Saturday it was cheesesteaks. Gotta love how boys enjoy their food. These two were chowing down just in front of where I was sitting to watch batting practice. Citizens Bank Park gets lots of awards for the variety and quality of its food. Cheesesteaks and hoagies no doubt top the popularity list.

cheers for the union

The Philadelphia Union, an MLS expansion team, yesterday opened its sparkling new park, located at the foot of the Commodore Perry Bridge in Camden, New Jersey. The Union treated the sell-out crowd to a 3-1 win. Not even the World Cup can turn me into an avid soccer fan, but I did look for the game on TV after the Phillies had finished up theirs. When I didn't find it on any of the Philadelphia channels, I turned the TV off. Who knew it would be on ESPN? Hours later, I happened on the final six minutes of the match. It was a good showing all round, by the team and by its Sons of Ben fans.

'swonderful, 'smarvelous

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.

more from yesterday's game

It was odd to see #32 but lots of Jays' fans were wearing it.

The flag was waving for the singing of the Canadian national anthem but not many people were singing.

The Blue Jays take the field at the top of the first inning.

These guys, who seemed to be Jays' fans, were catching every moment.

Jimmy Rollins leads off the ball game in a road gray uni.

outta here on a steamy afternoon

The Blue Jays were out of the park early and often (they did all their scoring on three home runs), while Cole Hamels was out of sorts and the Phillies were out of the game. From his first pitch, Cole Hamels looked out of sync and never did appear to be relaxed or in rhythm. The power-happy Jays were happy to take advantage. Jays' starter Shaun Marcum, on the other hand, had Phillies' batters looking silly with his change-up. Marcum, now his team's ace, is 7-1 when pitching after a Jays' loss.

Ryan Howard scored the only Phillies' run, on a mammoth solo shot to deep center. It came on the heels of the knee-jerk fans behind me whining about his contract. "Since he got his money, he hasn't done a thing." They also got agitated when Jimmy Rollins did not blaze his way to first on a routine ground-out. The guy next to me had the same reaction to that that I did, which made us both laugh. He was there with his girlfriend and another couple. The girlfriend had earlier asked me about my scorebook because she had been wanting to do the same. It turned out they frequently came to games, usually on standing-room-only tickets. I liked that. It gives you a chance to hang out all over the park.

It was awfully hot and humid yesterday, even where we were, on the shadier third base side. The section over had a nest of loud and happy Jays' fans. It was cute to see that so many had made the trip. Toronto is, after all, the only Canadian team left. It's sort of how I felt about yesterday's US loss to Ghana. Ghana is carrying the flag for the continent.

doc 'goes home'

In what should have been Roy Halladay's first return to Toronto, the Doc was domintant in a 9-0 win over the Blue Jays. Thanks to security concerns connected with the G20 Summit in Toronto, the weekend series was shifted to Philadelphia, albeit played as a road game for the Phillies. The Phillies batted first and wore their road gray unis; the DH was in effect. In all ways possible the game was played as a road game in an American League park. Except for attendance figures, stats, however, will hold true to location. That means that the game counts as a sell-out of sorts for Toronto and the win as a home win for Halladay.

The Phillies broke the game open with a six-run fifth that put them up 8-0. Ross Gload, playing first for the DH'ing Howard, had a bases-clearing triple in the fifth. A day after his four-hit game, Placido Polanco was very unPolly-like, grounding into three (!) double plays. Shane Victorino's eighth-inning solo home run was the cherry on top. It was also the only home run of the game. Jimmy Rollins, meanwhile, had a career-high four walks.

Blue Jay fans will have to wait till next year to see fan-favorite Halladay pitch again in front of his former hometown team. Halladay allowed six hits in seven innings: Jose Contreras and David Herndon finished the shutout.

Evan Turner, the #2 pick in this year's NBA draft, threw out the first pitch. On Thursday that honor went to former-Sixer great Moses Malone, who was greeted with cheers and hollers.

The game ended in time for TV viewers to catch the final two innings of a wild no-hitter thrown by Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks against his former team, the Tampa Bat Rays. Jackson threw 149 pitches, walked eight, and hit a man but finally got the no-hitter. Including two perfect games, it was the fourth no-hitter this season. It was also the third time that the Rays have been no-hit since last July. Bizarre.

domonic brown to lehigh valley

At last, something to 'laugh, oink, cheer' about with Lehigh Valley. Prospect Domonic Brown, who has had a scorching June, was promoted today to Double-A Reading to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The move is one of a host of others, including the return of Tyson Glilles to the DL, Luis Maza's being shipped off to Houston, and, alas, speedy outfielder Rich Thompson''s being sent to Reading, no doubt to make some playing time for Greg Dobbs.

it's not the heat, it's the stupidity

As I was stuck in weather yesterday getting out of Philadelphia, I listened to the rain-delay show hosted by Jim Jackson. Most of the callers made me want to beat my head against the steering wheel.

It started with the guy who was very, very, very angry that Juan Castro was still on the team. Now that Jimmy Rollins was back (for all of three games and he didn't even play in one of them), the Phillies, he said, had to cut Castro immediately and get some bench players who could hit. He heatedly shouted for Cody Ransom and John Mayberry, Jr. Enough with the calls for Ransom, folks. Please watch these guys play before crying for them to come up.

Another guy was furious about the middle relief. Why was David Herndon on the team? When Jackson asked him how Herndon had ever cost the Phillies a game, the guy spluttered. If your problem with the bullpen is David Herndon, you've got bigger issues.

One guy was full of doom about Jimmy Rollins, sure that his walk-off homer the night before would propel him into a spate of popping up. Sheesh. Forget that Rollins was two games off the DL. Forget about the drama of that hit or the moment or the win, let's grouse about popping up.

Then there was the guy who called from Illinois to wonder what had happened with Greg Dobbs and Greg Jeffries? Jackson was flabbergasted but graciously explained that the long-retired Jeffries was probably now in his 40's.

There were, of course, the old-dog-chewing-on-old-bone calls. Why were the Phillies too cheap to do x, y, or z? I guess $140 million is just not enough for some folks. Why didn't they bring back Pedro Martinez (yawn) or, dare I mention his name, Cliff Lee?

Only one woman called, to ask why Halladay and Hamels had been flip-flopped for the Toronto series, which was a good question. One man called with a good question, too, about purpose pitches, or rather the lack thereof. Otherwise, it was just plain dumb, goofy, or embarrassing comments and questions one after another for almost an hour and a half. Entertaining in its way, but golly.

wipe-out

It was hoagie time before the game yesterday afternoon.

Game time temperature was 96F but that isn't why I left after the seventh-inning stretch. Yes, the Phillies had a comfortable lead but that's not why either. It was the sky and the distant flickering of lightning. If I had been really smart, though, I would not have left the parking lot. Instead, I was just turning onto the I-76 ramp when the storm broke and visibility dropped almost to zero. Winds were rocking the car, hail was bouncing off it, and rain lashing it. I could barely make see the car in front of me. All this unfolded to a colorful description of the equally dramatic scene taking place in the ballpark. Eventually it all went away and after a rain delay that lasted an hour and 37 minutes, the show went on. By then I was just about making it out of Philadelphia and onto the turnpike.

It was some storm but happily it all ended with a 12-3 rout of the Indians. Joe Blanton sailed through his outing. When I left in the seventh, he had thrown just 80 pitches and his strike/walk ratio was ridiculous. The Phillies had scored 12 runs, almost all on singles and Indian ineptitude. Placido Polanco had four hits, including a double. Call-up Dane Sardinha, who caught the game, hit the first homer of his career, a solo shot deep into left. Otherwise it was all singles.

The Indians scored two on a homer by former-Phillie farmhand Jason Donald, who had three hits. When play resumed, with two outs in the top of the eighth, Nelson Figueroa was on the mound. Figgy was called up to take the place of Chad Durbin, now on the DL.

jimmy picks his spot

Jimmy Rollins had the first walk-off homer of his career last night and the timing could not have been better. Trailing in the ninth 6-5 to the Indians, Rollins hit a two-run shot to the right field corner. Game over. The Phillies won 7-6. That despite another bad start from Kyle Kendrick, good when he is on, terrible when he is not. Call-up Mike Zagurski pitched a scoreless 1.1 innings in his long-awaited return to the bigs. Chad Durbin popped his hamstring in the ninth and was put on the DL, another bit of bad news.

It was Rollins, though, front and center, with his first hit since being activated from the DL. He called it "one of those moments you try to do all year. Your brain just stops working. You stop thinking about what you need to do. You just set your hands." As someone once said, An empty mind is a full bat.

J.A. Happ was better in last night's rehab start with Reading and the Reading bats stayed hotter than hot, with homers from Bozied, Galvis, Spidale, and Rizzotti, in an 8-3 win over Bowie.

dobbs to lehigh valley

Gregg Dobbs cleared waivers and accepted an assignment to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, where he will work on regaining his swing. The 'Pigs are on the road through Monday. No word yet on when Dobbs will join the team.

making history

Just about every time Jamie Moyer takes the mound, he's making history of some kind. Last night he got the 266th win of his career, tying Eppa Rixey and Bob Feller (both in the Hall of Fame) on the all-time wins list. In eight innings vs. the Cleveland Indians, Moyer gave up just one run, a homer to Russell Branyan, which tied Moyer at 505 with Robin Roberts for the most homers allowed. More history looms.

J.C. Romero came in to close in the 9th but put two men on. With one out, Brad Lidge came in to finish the job, striking out both men he faced. The Phillies scored their two runs in the first, then pretty much rested. Jimmy Rollins went 0-4 in his return. Sweet to see him back.

I was flipping between the Phillies and the R-Phils, who are on a run of late. Starter Drew Naylor was stifling and the offense was clicking. Domonic Brown hit two bombs, both deep beyond the right center wall. He also had a potentially bad misadventure in the field, colliding with center fielder Quinten Berry. Other than that, the kid looks ready for just about anything.

Domonic Brown and Jarred Cosart, RHP with the low-A Lakewood BlueClaws, have been selected to represent the Phillies in the All-Star Futures game next month in Anaheim. Great picks! Congrats to both.

dobbs dfa'd; rollins activated....

Gee, and I thought that the big news of the afternoon would come from FIFA. The Phillies have activated Jimmy Rollins, who is in tonight's line-up. In something of a surprise, they have designated pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs for assignment. Dobbs, who was super off the bench in 2007 and 2008, has been weaker than weak this season, at the plate and in the field. If he clears waivers, chances are we will see him with Lehigh Valley, working on his swing. On the more-bad-news front, Carlos Ruiz has been put on the DL. Reliever Mike Zagurski has been called up from Triple-A and Scott Mathieson has been optioned back down. All of these moves leave the Phillies' bench looking as anemic as it has been all season. Good luck to Dobbs and get well soon, Carlos.

mr. lee, mr. lee

I tuned into the Reds-Mariners game Friday night driving back from Williamsport because I knew Cliff Lee was pitching. He was up to his usual tricks, throwing a complete-game shutout. It brought back memories, but most of all it made me feel sad that Lee is now a mercenary. He's a pawn, going to the contender with the best package of prospects, till he reaches free agency. I have the feeling, though, that he'll never be as loved as he was in Philadelphia. Damn the Mariners for being so crappy.

It would be great if Lee were traded to another AL team, a disaster if he were to come back to the NL. The Twins come immediately to mind. A nice team, there's something Lite about them. And their starting pitching, that game Pavano threw notwithstanding, does not impress. Lee would give them presence.

a riches of names

Already the NY-Penn league has yielded a couple of great names. On Friday it was Gift Ngoepe, the speedy second baseman of the State College Spikes. Last night it came courtesy of the Jamestown Jammers, outfielder Sequoyah Stonecipher. It gets better: His full name is Sequoyah Trueblood Stonecipher. That's almost in haiku territory.