Marlins Draw Fans, Phillies On the Board

The Florida Marlins drew their largest crowd in two seasons on Friday night for their '07 home opener (perhaps in large part due to the Marlins cheerleader outfits ... an improvement from three years ago when they wore Dolphins cheerleader outfits with a small Marlin patch sewn on), but disappointed the crowd of 40,397 in a listless 8-2 loss to the formerly struggling Philadelphia Phillies, who now have their first win of the season.

"This will probably be the largest crowd we have all year," second baseman Dan Uggla said. "We wanted to play better for them."

What would have constituted playing better? Perhaps Miguel Olivo (the catcher) not running through a stop sign and going for an inside-the-park home run in the second inning would have helped. Or perhaps better defense ... errors by Miguel Cabrera and Mike Jacobs led to four unearned Phillies runs (Sergio Mitre deserved a better fate). Hanley Ramirez had a home run for Florida, but also left six men on base.

The Phillies sent 44-year-old Jamie Moyer to the mound in hopes of turning the tide from a heartbreaking opening series at home against Atlanta. Predictably, all the Phillies really needed was to get away from a hostile Philadelphia crowd.

"I knew we were going to win sooner or later," Moyer said.

Pat Burrell benefitted most from getting out of Philly, which makes sense because he's the one that gets booed the loudest. Burrell had four RBI's including a three run homer off Ricky Nolasco.