Howard's big night leads Phillies to victory

Phillies 12, Padres 4

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Ryan Howard made Petco Park look like a bandbox.

The reigning NL MVP hit two towering home runs off David Wells, drove in five runs and scored three times to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to a 12-4 win over the San Diego Padres on Saturday night.

Howard reached base five times, going 3-for-3 with two walks. His power display gave Jamie Moyer the win in a matchup of 44-year-old lefty pitchers.

"It's big," Howard said about the Padres' spacious downtown home. "You still have to go up there with your same approach to hitting it."

Joked manager Charlie Manuel: "Maybe they shrunk it up a little bit."

The big left-hander hit a high, arching three-run shot to straightaway center field off Wells, also a big lefty, with one out in the first, estimated at 407 feet. Jimmy Rollins was aboard on a leadoff single and Chase Utley on a one-out walk.

Howard has hit 12 of his 27 homers off lefties.

"It took him a little while last year to really get going on lefties," Manuel said. "Once he finds his stroke, once he stays on the ball and stays in the middle of the field, that's when he hits them good. Most left-handers do that, too. Except he's just bigger and stronger than most guys."

Said Wells: "He's a good hitter. But a pitch down the middle, good hitters won't miss and they're going to hit it pretty good. That's the ballgame right there, pretty much."

Howard gave the Phillies a 4-0 lead when he led off the fourth by driving a full-count pitch into the second deck in left-center field, estimated at 428 feet.

"He's got a long bat, I guess, about 40 inches. He's legit, he's got a good swing, he sees the ball well. He's kind of a guy you don't want to beat you," Wells said.

"You're talking about a prolific power hitter in Howard," said Padres manager Bud Black, a former big league pitcher. "If you don't get it in the right location, he's capable of doing that."

Still in the fourth, Wells walked Pat Burrell with one out, then gave up a two-run shot to Wes Helms to center field. It was Helms' fourth.

Howard tormented Wells one final time, knocking him out with an RBI single to left with one out in the fifth.

Howard is 9-for-20 with five homers and 11 RBIs in the first six games of a seven-game road trip. He homered twice in a 15-3 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.

Moyer and Wells had a combined age of 88 years, 307 days, the second-oldest pitching matchup in big league history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The oldest matchup featured the Angels' Don Sutton against the Indians' Phil Niekro on June 8, 1987, when their combined age was 90 years, 135 days.

Milton Bradley went 3-for-5 with a two-run homer, and was a double short of becoming the first Padres player to hit for the cycle. He was obtained from Oakland on June 29 but was put on the disabled list when he reported two days later. He was activated July 7.

Moyer (8-8) had been 0-3 with a 10.06 ERA in his last three starts. He allowed four runs and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings.

Wells (5-6) allowed seven runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings, struck out one and walked two.

Bradley hit a two-run shot to left off Moyer with one out in the seventh to pull the Padres to 7-4. It was his second with the Padres and fourth this season.

The Phillies had a five-run ninth, highlighted by pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs' two-run single and Carlos Ruiz's two-run double.

Josh Bard hit an RBI single in the third and Adrian Gonzalez had a sacrifice fly in the fifth for the Padres.

Game notes
Home plate umpire Ed Montague left the game after the bottom of the fourth after he was hit on the right thumb by a foul ball. X-rays showed no broken bones. Second base ump Bill Miller moved behind the plate. Montague returned to the game at third base in the top of the seventh, and third base umpire Marvin Hudson moved to second. ... Moyer's father-in-law, former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps, was at the game. ... Eight days before his induction at Cooperstown, Tony Gwynn watched and applauded as a 9 1/2-foot statue of his likeness was unveiled on a grassy knoll just beyond the outfield wall at Petco Park. ... RHP Kyle Drabek, the Philadelphia Phillies' first-round draft pick in 2006, will have season-ending reconstructive elbow surgery on Wednesday. Drabek, 19, is the son of 1990 NL Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek. He was 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA in 11 games, including 10 starts, for the Class A Lakewood BlueClaws. ... Bradley is the 302nd Padres player to miss the cycle by one hit and the 15th to miss by a double.