Durham counters IronPigs rally with four-run ninth in 5-3 win.

FROM THE MORNING CALL

It took Vance Worley just two years and 45 days to reach the major leagues after being drafted.

The way he pitched Tuesday in his Triple-A debut, the 22-year-old right-hander doesn't appear to want to wait too long to return.

Worley, who jumped from Reading to the Phillies briefly last week, scattered five hits over six shutout innings before Durham pulled out a 5-3 win before 9,769 at Coca-Cola Park.



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The IronPigs (44-60) capitalized on an eight-inning throwing error by Durham pitcher Dale Thayer to score three times and erase a 1-0 deficit, with Domonic Brown tripling home two runs, then scoring the third on an Andy Tracy single.

But the defending Triple-A champion Bulls (63-40 got a pair of home runs off closer Scott Mathieson (3-4) in the ninth, the second a go-ahead three-run shot by Justin Ruggiano, to win their sixth straight game and open up a 12 1/2 game lead over Charlotte in the International League South.

Shane Victorino's apparent oblique injury in Philadelphia turned the postgame focus on Brown, who had two hits to push his average to .346 with 12 extra-base hits and 21 RBIs in 28 games. Brown left the clubhouse before the media arrived.

"I don't think Domonic would be the guy if someone went on the DL," IronPigs manager Dave Huppert said when asked what he'd tell the Phillies if they asked if he thought Brown was ready to move up. "I think if it was a few-day thing it'd be [John Mayberry Jr.]."

Pressed what he'd say if they asked if he was ready, Huppert declined.

"I'll tell Ruben when he asks me," he said, referring to Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr.

Worley, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound right-hander who was the Phillies' third-round pick in the 2008 draft, was 9-4 with a 3.42 ERA at Reading. His six shutout innings extend his personal streak of not allowing a run in 24 straight innings, beginning with his final 17 innings at Reading in his last two starts and including one on Saturday in his major-league debut against Colorado.

He shut down one of the International League's top lineups Tuesday, retiring the first eight batters he faced before Fernando Perez slapped Durham's first hit past third baseman Neil Sellers. Perez raced to third when J.J. Furmaniak rolled a slow bouncer through the right side for a single, but Worley got all-star hero Elliot Johnson on a comebacker to end the inning.

Worley was sitting at 66 pitches through five innings when Furmaniak battled through a 10-pitch at-bat before bouncing to third, and Johnson used nine pitches before doubling to right. Johnson moved to third on a groundout, but after Worley issued an intentional walk to Dan Johnson, the IL's home run and RBI leader, Worley got Joe Dillon to fly out and end the inning.

Overall Worley threw 99 pitches, 65 for strikes, and struck out seven while issuing just that one walk.

"He threw excellent," Huppert said of Worley, who also left the clubhouse before the media arrived. "Very good location with his fastball, mixed in enough breaking stuff and did a great job for his first outing against a real good ball club."

"Very impressive," Andy Tracy, who had two hits to snap out of an 0-for-14 funk. "He worked fast, pounded the zone. That's a good ballclub over there that he did well against. It was a great outing for him and hopefully he can continue to do that."

Durham broke through against Michael Stutes in the eighth on a walk, an errant pickoff throw and Dillon's RBI double.

Meanwhile, the IronPigs' own scoreless streak reached 17 straight innings, stretching back to the final 10 innings of the 15-inning loss to Norfolk on Monday, before scoring three times in the eighth.

However, Joe Lobaton lined a leadoff homer in the ninth off Mathieson to cut the deficit to 3-2, and after a strikeout, a hit batter and a single led to Ruggiano's game-winning homer.

"Obviously when you lose a game in the in the it's not a great feeling, but we had the guy we wanted on the mound and it just didn't work out," Tracy said.