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Alfonso's late-inning heroics lift Giants over Phillies

May 5, 2007 - 6:57 AM SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Eliezer Alfonzo and the San Francisco Giants waited until the late innings to finally figure out the Philadelphia Phillies.

Alfonzo smacked a go-ahead, bases-clearing double as the Giants finally got on the board in the seventh inning en route to a 6-2 victory over the Phillies on Friday.

Matt Morris (4-1) tossed seven stellar innings for San Francisco, which had lost 11 of its last 13 vs. Philadelphia, including five of six at home entering Friday's game.

It looked to be the same old story for most of the contest on Friday. But the Giants staged a dramatic comeback in the seventh.

Trailing, 2-0, Barry Bonds walked to lead off the inning. Bengie Molina followed with a single and after Pedro Feliz flied out to deep left, Omar Vizquel singled to load the bases. Alfonzo, who was pinch hitting for Morris, then slammed a deep drive that just got over the head of Phillies center fielder Aaron Rowand - clearing the bases and giving San Francisco its first lead of the game.

"I'm excited I made big contact there and helped my team," Alfonzo said. "I'm doing good things. ... I put in my mind I'm playing every night."

The rally ruined the second straight solid outing by Phillies starter Jamie Moyer (3-2), who had tossed six scoreless innings to that point.

The veteran lefthander allowed three runs and five hits, while striking out three and walking one in seven innings.

Moyer was coming off his best performance of 2007, when he took a no-hit bid into the seventh inning vs. the Florida Marlins last Sunday. The 44-year-old yielded two hits over 7 1/3 shutout innings in a 6-1 victory.

"You'd hope to win that game, it wasn't enough," Moyer said. "That's this game, it can change on one pitch. I just tried to get (Bonds) to swing the bat. Obviously I'm not going to throw him a cookie. You don't want him to change the momentum of the game."

Morris also pitched well, only yielding two runs and eight hits, while walking three and striking out one.

"It's not the mentality of going out and being a stopper," Morris said. "It's just going out and continue to make pitches and stick with your game plan, and that's what I tried to do tonight. That's a pretty dangerous lineup. Their first six guys, they're pretty stacked and I was just able to make some pitches. I got in jams all night, I was able to get some double plays and it ended up working out for me."

The Giants picked up three insurance runs for him in the eighth with a quick two-out rally - again started with a walk to Bonds. The future Hall of Famer came up with two out and nobody on, but Phillies manager Charlie Manuel chose to intentionally walk him to preserve the one-run lead.

"I know they're going to walk Barry and it's up to us to do something about it," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "It's up to us to come through and our guys did. That last rally was a huge rally. I mean it was a one-run ballgame at the time."

"We had two outs, and why should we take a chance of him hitting a home run? We can pitch to somebody else over there," Manuel said. "I don't think it had anything to do with the game really."

However, the free pass ignited more offense. Mark Sweeney followed Bonds with a single and Feliz walked to load the bases, setting up a two-run bloop single by Vizquel to make it 5-2. Ray Durham grounded an RBI single to center to cap the scoring.

"(Bonds) has the ability to go big fly anytime and we see that everyday," Morris said. "Teams see that and are truly respecting him and just to get him on base and the guy pitching from the stretch now is a different story, and we're able to have some big two-out hits and take some more runs on for Armando (Benitez) who did a great job."

San Francisco's bullpen hurled two perfect innings. Brad Hennessey allowed one hit and struck out two in the eighth and Benitez hurled a clean ninth in a non-save situation. Victorino and Jimmy Rollins combined to go 5-for-8 with two runs scored for the Phillies, who have split their last six games.

"I felt like we had them and Jamie's going to do what he does," Victorino said. "He pitched a heck of a game and he went out there and did what he needed to do and has been doing all year. Unfortunately, he made one poor pitch for Alfonzo to hit and other than that he had a great night. It's just frustrating to go that far and that long and do as well as he did."