Brown knocks in 4 runs to spark 'Pigs

With trade rumors swirling around the Phillies almost daily as they sputter away their chance to earn a third straight World Series appearance, the name of Domonic Brown is never far behind.

But the best thing Philadelphia general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. can do is ignore them.

Brown continued his impressive play since arriving from Reading late last month, knocking in four runs in three different ways to lead the IronPigs to a 6-4 win over visiting Pawtucket before a capacity Fourth of July crowd of 10,000.

Brown drove in Lehigh Valley's first run with a sacrifice fly, the next two with his third homer in 11 games, and the fourth and tying run with a run-scoring groundout to give him 10 RBIs in 38 at-bats since his promotion.

Andy Tracy knocked in the go-ahead run with a double, then scored on Neil Sellers' second double to cap a three-run seventh that snapped a four-game losing streak for the IronPigs (33-51), who won for just the second time in 10 games.

J.A. Happ pitched 5 1/3 innings in his final rehab outing for the IronPigs, allowing six hits and four runs.

Trailing 4-3, Chris Duffy opened the seventh by legging out an infield single up the middle, then got to third on Melvin Dorta's third hit, a double to right center.

Batting against left-hander Rich Hill, Brown fell behind 1-2 before bouncing a grounder up the middle corraled by shortstop Gil Velezquez, with Duffy scoring the tying run as Velezquez made the play at first.

Tracy followed with a double just inside the first base bag, scoring Dorta, and Sellers chased in an insurance run with a double to right center.

Scott Mathieson allowed a two-out double in the ninth but struck out four to record a two-out save, his 15th.

Although his final line doesn't exactly reflect it, Happ looked much sharper than he did in last Tuesday's outing here when he threw 100 pitches in four innings against Rochester. Frustrated at times by home plate umpire Travis Brown's strike zone, Happ allowed six hits and four runs, all earned, while walking four in 5 1/3 innings.

The left-hander breezed through the first three innings on 37 pitches before he struggled the second time through the Pawtucket order, throwing 66 pitches to the final 16 batters he faced, allowing 10 of them to reach base.

Duffy gambled on the bases in the third to help produce the IronPigs' first run since his RBI single in the seventh inning of Thursday's 4-2 loss to Syracuse. After reaching base on a one-out infield single in the third, Duffy kept racing around second on Dorta's single to left and appeared to be the proverbial dead duck at third when Ryan Kalish's throw got to the bag well ahead of him.

But sliding head-first, Duffy reached out and lifted his left arm to avoid the glove of Jorge Jimenez on the ground in front of the bag, then quickly got his hand on the bag before Jimenez could react and tag him. Brown followed with a sacrifice fly to center, giving the IronPigs a 1-0 lead.

The PawSox answered back quickly, however. Kalish ended a run of nine straight retired by Happ with a bouncer that got through the right side, then motored all the way around when Velezquez's double just inside the third-base line hugged the wall and got by Mayberry in the corner.

Duffy saved Happ major trouble with a diving catch of Bubba Bell's sinking liner, but Happ issued back-to-back walks to set a run-scoring groundout by Josh Reddick to second.

Brown kept the IronPigs within one when he easily gunned down Juan Apodaka trying to stretch a single to right into a double. That saved a run when Kalish followed with a single to right, and after issuing a walk Happ got out of the inning with a groundout.

Brown then gave Happ and the IronPigs the lead, following Dorta's one-out single with a towering drive that just kept carrying until it dropped into the batting eye just beyond the 400-foot sign. But again, the lead was shortlived.

Ryan Shealy, who walked on a 3-1 pitch to open the sixth inning, scored the tying run when Lars Anderson split the outfielders on a double that got to the wall in left center. After a flyout, Happ thought he had Tug Hulett struck out on a 1-2 pitch. Instead, Travis Brown called the pitch a ball, and the light-hitting Hulett (.182 entering the game) dumped a bloop single near the left-field line on the next pitch to send Anderson in from second with the go-ahead run.

Sellers' one-out double and Paul Hoover's two-out single put runners at the corners in the bottom of the sixth inning but newcomer Ozzie Chavez, promoted from Reading Saturday when Cody Ransom was called up to the Phillies, grounded out to first to end the threat.

The Morning Call