Phillies Beat Marlins In Series Opener

A night after Florida's Anibal Sanchez pitched the major leagues' first no-hitter in more than two years, the Marlins couldn't stop giving up hits. Ryan Howard hit his 54th home run, his 10th

Friday, September 8th 2006, 6:24 am

By: News On 6

A night after Florida's Anibal Sanchez pitched the major leagues' first no-hitter in more than two years, the Marlins couldn't stop giving up hits. Ryan Howard hit his 54th home run, his 10th in 15 games, and Chris Coste, Chase Utley and Jeff Conine also homered in the Philadelphia Phillies' 14-8 victory Thursday night.

``They have some boys who can slug,'' Marlins manager Joe Girardi said. ``It's not the type of game we like playing.''

Philadelphia, which had 17 hits, overcame a 3-0 deficit against Josh Johnson (12-7) to win the opener of a four-game series, the first of 10 games against the Marlins in the final 3 1/2 weeks of the season. The Phillies closed within 2 1/2 games of wild-card-leading San Diego with 22 to play,

``We have to play some really good ball to make that up in such a short period of time,'' Conine said. ``Every game from here on out, I wouldn't say a must win, but we have to play well over .500 the rest of the way to make the playoffs.''

Florida dropped 3 1/2 games back of the Padres.

``No one said it's going to be easy,'' Girardi said. ``We have to beat Philadelphia. We have nine more games with them. We have to take advantage of the situation.''

In other NL games, it was: New York 7, Los Angeles 0; St. Louis 6, Arizona 2; Colorado 10, Washington 5; and Pittsburgh 7, Chicago 5.

At Miami, Jon Lieber (7-9) won despite allowing first-inning homers to Miguel Cabrera and Mike Jacobs. Lieber gave up four runs and seven hits in 5 1-3 innings. Phillies closer Tom Gordon, sidelined since Aug. 12 with a strained right shoulder, pitched the ninth.

Mets 7, Dodgers 0

Tom Glavine (13-6) won for the first time since Aug. 5, and Jose Reyes flew around the bases for his first career inside-the-park home run.

``He turned on the jets around second base,'' Mets manager Willie Randolph said. ``He should've been running out of the box but that shows you how fast he is.''

In his first Shea Stadium outing since before a blood clot in his pitching arm sidelined him for two weeks, Glavine yielded five hits but no walks in 6 1-3 innings and earned his 288th major league victory, but just his fourth in 14 starts dating to June 18.

``I get nervous watching him run so fast,'' Glavine said of Reyes. ``Maybe it's because I can't run that fast and I know I would get hurt if I did.''

New York hasn't allowed a run in 25 innings and cut its magic number for winning its first NL East title since 1988 to seven. Los Angeles has lost four of five following a seven-game winning streak and saw its NL West lead shrink to just a half-game over idle San Diego.

Brad Penny (15-8) gave up seven runs and 10 hits in 5 2-3 innings, dropping to 1-8 at Shea.

Cardinals 6, Diamondbacks 2

Scott Spiezio homered twice in a game for the first time since May 2003 as the visiting Cardinals opened a 6 1/2-game lead over second-place Cincinnati in the NL Central and sent Arizona to its eighth loss in nine games.

Jeff Weaver (3-4) gave up two runs and five hits in five innings. Miguel Batista (10-6) allowed five runs and six hits in six innings. He had been 4-0 in 13 starts since losing to Tampa Bay on June 20.

Rockies 10, Nationals 5

Jamey Carroll got the go-ahead hit, one of three straight infield singles in a five-run eighth at Denver.

Austin Kearns hit an RBI single in the top half and scored to make it 5-5 on Brian Schneider's double off Jeremy Affeldt.

Troy Tulowitzki singled off Ryan Wagner (3-3) leading off the bottom half and came home from second with two outs when Carroll bounced a ball off the glove of Wagner. Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins followed with run-scoring infield hits.

Manny Corpas (1-1) retired one batter for the win in a matchup of last-place teams that started 2 hours, 11 minutes late because of rain.

Pirates 7, Cubs 5

Chris Duffy homered leading off the game, then hit a tiebreaking drive in the ninth inning off Scott Eyre (0-2) for his third homer in 353 career at-bats. One out later, Xavier Nady homered against Ryan Dempster.

Duffy went 4-for-4 with three RBIs and two steals.

Jonah Bayless (1-0) got the last out in the eighth for his first major league victory, and Salomon Torres finished for his fourth save of the season. The Cubs (56-84), who had rallied from a 5-0 deficit, fell a half-game behind the visiting Pirates (57-84) for the worst record in the NL.