Ageless wonder Jamie Moyer might be putting together a decent season, but his kryptonite appears to be MLB’s oldest stadiums. After getting shelled last month in Boston’s Fenway Park, he made an early exit tonight at Wrigley Field as the Cubs took down the Phillies 12-6.
Although the Phils ended the season’s first half with a bang by sweeping the first place Cincinnati Reds over the course of four games, the best laid plans were quickly tossed tonight.
Ryan Howard’s early two-run homer gave Jamie Moyer a lead to work with going into the home half, but that’s all of the scoring they would do for most of the game. On the other hand, the Cubs came to play. They teed off on Moyer early and often, lighting him up for six runs over three innings and adding two more homers onto his all-time list.
David Herndon, Kyle Kendrick, and Chad Durbin (activated off the DL today) all pitched brilliantly, allowing just two hits between them over three innings. The shit would hit the fan when Jose Contreras took the mound, as he was just putrid, allowing five runs off of five hits over the course of 2/3 inning. Danys Baez was able to stop the bleeding a bit, but he still surrendered a run over four hits.
The bats would finally wake up in the top of the ninth as the Fightins were able push four runs home, which made the final score slightly less embarrassing. Shane Victorino knocked home Wilson Valdez, Raul Ibanez would follow with an RBI single, and then Howard capped off the scoring for the night with another monster two-run blast out of The Friendly Confines.
For a team with a lot of ground to make up in the NL East, this was not the way to start the second half of the season. Although not insurmountable, the Phils now sit 5.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in third place. The underachieving Cubs seem like just the team to beat up on, so the Phillies need to show what they’re made of over the course of the next three games.
