Altherr, Morgan lead Phillies past Blue Jays 7-4

They remained one game behind the AL East-leading New York Yankees.

Granderson passed Lucas Duda for the team lead in home runs with 22. If they need me to come off the bench and pinch-hit, I’ll do that. “Hopefully I can continue to keep producing up here and help the team win”.

First baseman Travis Shaw had four hits, second baseman Brock Holt three while David Ortiz contributed two doubles. A loud group of Jays fans chanted “MVP” as he rounded the bases.

Tulowitzki was arguably the biggest fish the club brought in during the trade deadline when the Blue Jays acquired him from the Colorado Rockies, and so far he’s been a solid addition to the team.

Philadelphia Phillies’ Jeff Francoeur follows through after hitting…

Morgan was crafty, allowing just two earned runs on five hits in seven innings, with three strikeouts and no walks, lowering his season ERA to 3.92.

“I’m a pretty die-hard fan”, he said. “I was fighting it all night”.

The Blue Jays (66-56) would also score a pair of runs in the eighth inning, as reliever Luis Garcia opted to start the inning by walking Ben Revere and Pennington.

Investigators say the tickets appear to be real and are very hard to detect until you reach the front gates of the Rogers Centre.

It was nice to see the bats get going again, it seems like it has been awhile since we had big game from the hitters.

Under NL rules, the Jays lost their designated hitter and had to put their pitcher in the lineup.

Also contributing to the cause in the sixth was a pinch-hit RBI single by Chris Colabello and solo homer by Edwin Encarnacion. Donaldson’s shot off Gomez on a 3-0 pitch made it 7-5 and Encarnacion connected for an 8-5 lead.

The usually dependable lefty was just not his normal self, getting tagged early and often as the Phillies raced into a 4-0 lead through three innings.

“Poor guy”, Cody Asche said as he strolled by Altherr after the game.

Billy Burns hit a tying double for Oakland in the sixth, then scored the go-ahead run on Danny Valencia’s double-play grounder two batters later. By the time Buehrle was due up for the second time in the fifth, the Jays had just narrowed the gap to 4-2 by scoring twice and they had a runner on second and two outs.

The game was essentially overshadowed by the breaking news beforehand that the Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers were in the midst of final talks on a trade of Chase Utley.

Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. called Utley, a six-time All-Star during his 13 years with the Phillies, “an iconic, generational player”.

The Blue Jays are going with a four-man starting rotation during their 10-game road trip because of two off days.

The skinny on Hutch: Pitcher Drew Hutchison will make only one start in his Triple-A stint.

This will be Hutchison’s first start with the Bisons since August 2013 when he was working his way back from “Tommy John” surgery. Franco was hit on the wrist last Tuesday at Arizona. He missed the next four games.

Logan Couture was just a preschooler when the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series titles in 1992 and 1993.

Phillies: Philadelphia opens a four-game series at Miami on Thursday night with RHP Jerome Williams (4-8, 5.47) opposing LHP Brad Hand (2-3, 4.74).

The way Russell Martin grimaced out of the batter’s box and struggled through each laboured stride down the first-base line in the ninth inning Wednesday made it more evident than at any other point this year that something is wrong with the Toronto Blue Jays catcher.