Myers, Phils Beat Nats

Brett Myers pitched 7 of the strongest innings he's pitched all year and Chase Utley hit his first home run since July 7th to beat the Washington Nationals by a score of 2 - 1.

This was, far and away, Myers' best outing of the year. He pitched into the 8th inning and probably could have gotten through the inning, if not for a Chase Utley error on a ball that was a dead double play ball. He only struck out 2, but was consistently ahead in the count against most of the hitters he faced. His slider to right handed hitters seemed particular effective last night.

After Utley's error in the 8th inning left the Nats with runners at 1st and 2nd with nobody out, Manuel brought in a combination of JC Romero and Chad Durbin to limit the damage to only 1 run. Brad Lidge came on in the 9th inning to notch his 25th save on the year.

Offensively, the team was, again, somewhat dormant. Chase Utley finally got off the schneid with respect to hitting the long ball and he even got an "excuse me" basehit on a half-hearted swing in the eighth inning. Pat Burrell also chipped in with 2 base hits.

The series continues tonite with Old Man Moyer facing Tim Redding at 7:10pm.

Notes

- The Braves traded Mark Teixera to the Anaheim Angels for Casey Kotchman and a prospect. That effectively ends the Braves' thoughts of contention this year. Now, it's just the Mets and Marlins to worry about.

- Brett Myers managed to hit 2 batters during the game, but fortunately, he was able to force the next batter to hit into a DP both times.

- What a stupid, dumb, ridiculous base running mistake by Ryan Zimmerman in the 7th inning after Milledge pounded the ball off of Eric Bruntlett's glove. After the ball hopped away from Bruntlett, Rollins picked the ball up, noticing Zimmerman had taken too wide of a turn off of 2nd. The ball was quickly thrown to Utley at 2nd, who tagged out Zimmerman out. Just. Dumb.

- Before the game, Pedro Feliz was put on the 15 day DL for back issues. Bruntlett and Dobbs will reportedly split time at third base in the meantime.

- Apparently, Greg Maddux has no interest in pitching for Philly, according to CBS sportsline's Scott Miller.

Photo: Yahoo.com (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)