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Howard homers twice as Phillies clobber Nationals

May 22, 2008 - 4:51 AM By Tim Hipps PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

WASHINGTON (Ticker) - The Philadelphia Phillies, the leading home-run hitting team in the majors, got back on track with season-highs in extra-base hits and runs during a 12-2 victory over the Washington Nationals on Wednesday night.

Ryan Howard homered twice, Shane Victorino and Pedro Feliz each hit solo shots, and Jamie Moyer pitched six scoreless innings to lead the Phillies to a 2-1 series triumph in their first visit to Nationals Park.

Howard's first home run, an upper-deck shot to right-center that gave Philadelphia a 4-0 lead in the fifth, was believed to be the deepest shot in Nationals Park's brief history.

"The one he hit in the upper deck, it doesn't get any better than that," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "The second one he hit was a fastball on the outside of the plate and he just went and hit it and it went out of the yard. He wasn't trying to pull it or nothing. He just hit it. Go ask him."

A happy Howard downplayed the bomb.

"That's no big deal," he said. "I missed the first two (pitches) earlier and he tried to start back at me, running over the plate, and I was able to stay on it and got a pretty good swing on it.

"Confidence-wise, I'm fine. It's just a matter of the balls falling in - wise. Like I've been saying, it's just one thing: I'm trying to take it day to day with each at-bat and try to get the momentum going."

On this night, the Phillies got more than big mo going, but Manuel was not overly excited.

"It's just one night only," he said. "We've got to do it tomorrow and the next day, the next day, the next day and keep on doing it. It's a everyday process. We can celebrate this game right now, but once we take a shower and leave here, we've got to do it all over again. That goes for everybody. Your only as good as your last at-bat.

"We want to be good. I want our guys to hit .300 - every one of them. I want us to be the best-hitting team in baseball. What's wrong with that?"

Victorino doubled to the corner in left field and scored on Howard's double to the gap in left to get the Phillies going in the first. Feliz led off the second with his seventh homer of the season. Victorino and Howard each had a solo blast to make it 4-0 in the fifth. All that damage was done against Nationals lefthander Matt Chico (0-6), who allowed four runs on seven hits. Then the Phillies, who had scored only one run in the first two games of the series, really got busy. Philadelphia sent 13 batters to the plate during a eight-run sixth inning, highlighted by Howard's 12th homer of the season, a two-run shot to right off Nationals righthander Chris Schroder's first pitch of the night. After Nationals righthander Jesus Colome struck out Jayson Werth, Pedro Feliz and Chris Coste delivered consecutive singles. Moyer drew a walk. Jimmy Rollins followed with an RBI single, as did Victorino. Nationals' right fielder Elijah Dukes' throw to cutoff man Dmitri Young skipped into the camera well near the Phillies' dugout, a two-run error that sent Moyer and Rollins home, making it 8-0. Chase Utley's RBI double over Dukes' head in right scored Victorino to give Philadelphia a 9-0 lead. Howard's second homer of the night to right made it 11-0, giving him 13 career multi-homer games. But the inning wasn't over. Jayson Werth drew a two-out walk; Feliz singled; and Chris Coste's RBI single made it 12-0. Schroder struck out Moyer to end the inning.

"It seemed like forever," Victorino said of the time taken to awaken the Phillies' hitters, who managed only one run in the first 18 innings of the series. "We had been shut out the first night and scoring one run late in the game last night. I don't know if we just saved it all up for tonight, but it was definitely nice to get the big boy swinging the bat again, and everybody adding in with the hits and getting runs scored and driving in runs.

"Overall, we swung the bat well. With runners in scoring position, we drove guys in. We've been struggling with not scoring and not moving guys over and tonight we seemed to do that. When our offense does stuff like that, obviously it shows what kind of offense we have."

Moyer (4-3) allowed six hits, struck out three and walked one.

"We played some good defense tonight, which is key," Moyer said. "It was nice to see us swing the bats, score some runs. What did we score, eight in the sixth? It's nice to bunch some runs like that.

"I got in some trouble in the second and fourth innings and it was nice to work out of that."

The Nationals had two runners on base when Moyer struck out Dukes in each of those innings.

"That set the tone for us," Nationals manager Manny Acta said of stranding the runners. "We had plenty of opportunities to score some runs off of Jamie, and we weren't able to do it. We continue to struggle with runners in scoring position."

Asked how to improve upon that, Acta gave a terse reply.

"How about put the bat on the ball? Instead of striking out with a guy on third and less than two outs," Acta said. "It's pretty clear and it was preached that Jamie's not going to be challenging guys inside. He's going to stay away with off-speed stuff, and it's one of those guys who continue to try to pull the ball." The Nationals scored two runs in the seventh on RBI singles by Ryan Zimmerman and Dmitri Young off Phillies righthander Clay Condrey.