Phillies whiff in loss at home to Jays

In the Phillies' clubhouse, there's a pink notice taped to a door leading into the showers reminding the players to take their passports on the next road trip because they'll eventually be crossing the border into Canada.

They should be counting the days until they get out of town because home is not where they want to be hanging their hats these days.

So far this season, there's something about Citizens Bank Park that doesn't agree with the Phillies, something about playing on the road that does.

Trouble on the home front continued for the Phillies tonight as they went down against the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-1.

The loss dropped them to 1-4 so far on this nine-game homestand and 13-18 overall in South Philly. They went into the game with their worst home record after 30 games since 2000, when they were 12-18. The Phils are the lone division leader in baseball with a losing home record and they are 3-5 in interleague play, 7-16 including last season.

The Blue Jays jumped on Jamie Moyer early and nicked him for six runs over six innings while Toronto righthander Scott Richmond dominated the Phillies, striking out 11 and allowing five hits in a crisp eight-inning performance.

Scott Rolen, who got a key hit in the 10th inning of Tuesday's 8-3 Toronto win, continued to haunt his former team. Ignoring lusty boos from a crowd that apparently will never forget his ugly departure seven years ago, Rolen drove in two runs with a single and homer.

The Phillies' lone run was a fourth-inning homer by Jayson Werth.

Moyer was coming off three straight quality starts during which he had allowed six runs in 19 innings, and the Phillies had won two of them. After a May in which his ERA was a bloated 8.01 in six starts, he had two solid performances against the Dodgers and Mets to start off June.

At 46 years old, Moyer must deal with suspicions that his career might be near an end after each poor outing. Before the game, Phils manager Charlie Manuel addressed the issue, saying he did not believe Moyer was at the end of the line despite some of the lefthander's difficulties earlier in the season.

"This guy has bounced back how many times when people said he was through?" Manuel said. "I didn't think it was the end. He had a longer leash because of what he's done, where he's been, and how he did it. He'll know when the time comes."

But the Blue Jays have the kind of lineup that can easily cause Moyer problems, with several good righthanded batters who are patient and also selective enough not to chase pitches off the plate.

It didn't take long for Moyer to get into survival mode. Toronto got to him for four runs and six hits in the first two innings, and it could have been worse if the Jays hadn't stranded two runners in each inning.

Two former Phillies - Rolen and catcher Rod Barajas - were in the middle of Toronto's scoring. Rolen had a run-scoring single in the first inning, when Toronto scored three runs, and Barajas hit a 3-1 pitch to deep left-center for a home run in the second.

Moyer showed his resilience. In the next four innings, he had the Blue Jays figured out, and he held them scoreless to keep the Phils within striking distance. But his task of damage control ended after Aaron Hill banged out a two-run homer to make it 6-1 in the seventh.

In what might have been an unnerving sight for the Phillies, Raul Ibanez had a noticeable limp as he ran to first base in the fourth. The team's leading hitter, Ibanez returned to the lineup Tuesday after sitting out Sunday's game against Boston with a sore left Achilles tendon. He shrugged off the injury as no big deal and said his foot felt better after an adjustment was made to his shoe.