Following up a historic pitching duel between sure fire Hall of Famer Greg Maddux and Hall of Fame hopeful Cole Hamels, in which both pitchers went deep into the game, veteran pitcher Jamie Moyer went only 5 1/3 innings last night, allowing four runs on nine hits, including two home runs. It was an unfortunate way for the Phillies to end an otherwise successful April and for Moyer to celebrate his own bobble head give away. The Padres stranded nine runners during Moyer’s time on the mound, so the damage could have been a lot worse.

As has been the confounding theme of this short season, Moyer may have had a better day if he hadn’t gotten off to such a rocky start, in large part due to some poor defense behind him. The Phillies continue to rank around the worst in the league in errors and fielding percentage. After getting the first batter of the game out on two pitches, Moyer appeared to be on a roll with a ground out …

After having a somewhat disappointing season in his first year with the Philadelphia Flyers (at least the pre-Prospal part of the season), Danny Briere has quited all the critics and shown that he is worth every penny of his eight year, $52 million contract during this year’s playoff run. Briere is leading the league in playoff points (14) and goals (8) and has shown that he is every bit the star that Flyers’ GM Paul Holmgren thought he would be.

Last night the Flyers were cruising along with a 2-0 lead in the third period and looked well on their way to breaking open their series with the Montreal Canadiens until the Canadiens scored twice in 37 seconds to even things up on goals by Tomas Plekanec and Saku Koivu. The Flyers’ first goal came on R.J. Umberger’s sixth goal of the playoffs, a short side goal off a cross ice pass from none other than Briere. Umberger has scored in all four games of this series and has a point in …