Jamie Moyer took the ball in NYC in hopes of earning the 250th win of his marvelous career, instead he was pounded for seven runs on seven hits in only 2 and 1/3 innings of work and ended up losing his second game of the season. Mike Pelfrey pitched seven innings for the Mets to up his record to 4 and 0. The good news in this one was the work of the Phillies bullpen as J.A. Happ, Clay Condrey and Jack Taschner pitched scoreless ball in relief of Moyer. The bad news is that an early hole was dug too deep for the Phillie offense to climb back from.
The Fightin’s did battle back to make it a game as Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth each belted home runs in the contest. Werth led the Phillie offense as he went 4 for 4 at the plate, Howard had a two hit game as in total the Phillies matched the Met offensive output of ten hits. It was the early Met onslaught that cost the Phillies the loss however and one certainly has to be concerned with the inadequacy of the starting pitching thus far. This team will score runs with anybody but if our starters continually put the team in a hole then the battle will wear the team down both from bullpen overuse and team morale. Let’s hope that the starting pitching can turn it around soon.
Chatter
Danny Ozark, the Phillies skipper from the mid 70′s passed away today at the age of 85. The “Wizard of Oze” as he was known came to the Phillies from the L.A. Dodgers where he was a long time third base coach for the great Walter Alston. Ozark was a father figure type that inherited a young Phillie nucleaus including the likes of Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt and nurtured and taught them how to be a team and win. Ozark’s teams won multiple Division titles back when there were only two in in each league but failed to make it the World Series…. the Big Red Machine and Dodgers had alot to do with that ! Ozark was eventually dismissed in favor of Dallas Green who led the team to it’s first world championship in 1980. Ozark was the 1970′s version of Charlie Manuel, the difference being that Charlie won a championship and “the Wiz” did not. He was a good man by all accounts and may he rest in peace.
