Wayne Gomes

He warmed up in the right-field bullpen at 4:30 in the afternoon. Not a soul was in the seats. Hardly a soul was watching. Except for the owner, the general manager, the manager, the pitching coach, the scouting director, the farm director, the grounds crew, the ushers, his agent and his mother with a video camera, that is. This was how Wayne Gomes - a.k.a. the Closer of Tomorrow - started his career in the Phillies organization yesterday. And he wasn't even nervous. Well, that's what he said, anyway.

With summer barreling down the pike, the Phillies desperately need to give their fans a reason to spend their warm nights - and hard-earned legal tender - at the ballpark. A 1-5 homestand in the first week of June isn't going to attract many wallets to the big old saucer at the corner of Broad and Pattison. The Phils capped the disappointing week at Veterans Stadium with a 3-2 loss to the Montreal Expos last night in front of a crowd that was announced at 13,592. It was the Expos' second straight one-run victory in the late innings.

Orioles 0 Phillies 2 As pitching coach Galen Cisco trotted to the mound to talk with Matt Beech after the lefthander had walked two Baltimore Orioles in the first inning, you had to wonder if this would be another of those long, difficult nights Beech has endured in his young career. Beech erased those thoughts quickly and emphatically when he struck out two pretty good hitters - Rafael Palmeiro and Joe Carter - to get out of the inning. Those two strikeouts were two of a career-high nine Beech posted in helping the Phils to a 2-0 win over the Orioles in a ridiculously slow-moving game last night at the Vet. A crowd announced at 27,602 turned out for the interleague game, but a good portion of it - probably tired of watching Orioles manager Ray Miller stroll to the mound - was gone by the time the plodding affair ended.

It was a beautiful day; summer had just turned to autumn, the sun shined brightly, and the sky was a cloudless blue. Only one heart-wrenching thought crossed Melissa Gomes' mind as her husband navigated the family car through the city streets after a visit to the Scheie Eye Institute. "Such a pretty day, and I was just hoping that Miles would be able to see a day like that one," Melissa said. Wayne Gomes vividly remembers the painful emotions of that sunny afternoon. "We cried a lot that day," the 27-year-old Phillies relief pitcher said.

Jeff Brantley is on his way to the operating room, and Wayne Gomes is headed for the role the Phillies envisioned him filling when they made him the fourth overall pick in the 1993 draft. Brantley, 35, conceded yesterday that the torn labrum in his right shoulder will require season-ending surgery. Craig Morgan, the Wilmington surgeon who repaired a similar tear in Curt Schilling's shoulder in 1995, will perform the surgery tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Gomes is the heir apparent to the all-important closer's job. He had two saves when Brantley missed time earlier this season.

The best way to silence negative media coverage and booing fans is to go out and win. After 26 games, the Phillies may finally have figured out this rather uncomplicated notion. Paul Byrd pitched seven strong innings, and Wayne Gomes got the final six outs as the lowly Phils won for only the eighth time this season, beating the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2, last night at Veterans Stadium. Byrd (1-2) gave up only three hits, all to Eddie Taubensee. His stopper-like performance halted a four-game losing streak.

The Phillies got a big, intimidating closer who likes to blow away batters when they made Old Dominion University reliever Wayne Gomes their top pick in the amateur draft. The Phillies' brass yesterday called the hard-throwing junior righthander, chosen with the fourth pick overall, a "Lee Smith type. " They compared his curve ball to the one thrown by Baltimore Orioles relief ace Gregg Olson. While Gomes (rhymes with homes) had sensational strikeout numbers and was nearly unhittable this season, he also walked 57 in his last 62 innings.

In another June baseball draft, 18 years ago, the Phillies passed up a hulking, smokeballing, future Hall of Fame reliever named Lee Arthur Smith - and picked future pitching non-entity Sammy Welborn in the first round. Oops. It isn't often in baseball that you get a second chance. But today, when the Phillies' turn to pick rolls around in the first round of the 1993 draft, the best player on the board figures to be a guy who has been described as "the next Lee Smith. " This time, from all indications, they're going to get this pick right.

With banged-up catcher Mike Lieberthal getting a rest and third baseman Scott Rolen nursing a sore back, the Phillies used a patchwork starting lineup last night. Their No. 3 hitter, Travis Lee, hadn't hit a homer in 36 games. And their No. 5 hitter, Marlon Anderson, isn't exactly known for his run production. Throw in Kevin Jordan and Tom Prince, two players struggling to hit their weight, and you can understand why no one was confusing the Phillies with the '27 Yankees. Or even the 2000 Colorado Rockies.

There was no fist-pumping or foot-stomping out of Wayne Gomes this time. Twenty-four hours after experiencing one of his best moments in a Phillies uniform, he endured one of his most difficult. Gomes, the seventh Phillies pitcher of the game, walked in the go-ahead run in the top of the 12th inning as the Phils suffered a 6-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants last night at Veterans Stadium. By the time the game ended at nearly midnight, only a handful of fans from the original paid crowd of 13,050 remained.

1993: The Phillies had plenty of villains to motivate them. A year earlier they had been the National League's dartboard. They were hit by 51 pitches, 19 of them plunking Dave Hollins. The fact that their pitchers didn't retaliate created a schism in the clubhouse and left the '93 team to vow it wouldn't happen again. There were whispers that spring they they'd get even with a lot of pitchers and teams, including Greg Maddux, who had broken Lenny Dykstra's hand on the '92 season's second pitch.

Mike Vento capped a three-RBI night with the game-winning single in the bottom of the fifth inning as the Trenton Thunder beat the Erie SeaWolves, 3-2, in the Eastern League last night. The Thunder (64-63) won their second straight one-run game over the SeaWolves and moved above .500. Vento put Trenton in front, 2-0, with a two-run double in the bottom of the first off Erie starter Adam Pettyjohn (1-3). After Erie (60-67) tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the fifth, Trenton rallied.

MOOSIC, Pa. - Geoff Geary pitched five scoreless innings in his second start of the season as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's pitching stifled Louisville, 2-1, last night in the International League. Julio Santana and Wayne Gomes worked four strong innings of relief for the Red Barons. The Red Barons scratched home single runs in the third and fourth innings on sacrifice flies to support Geary, who allowed four hits and one walk while striking out four. Chase Utley's sacrifice fly brought home Jason Knupfer with the first run in the third, and Knupfer's sacrifice fly scored Kevin Sefcik to give the Red Barons all the runs they would need in the next inning.

MOOSIC, Pa. - Amaury Telemaco struck out seven batters in six innings while allowing only two hits to lead the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons past the Syracuse SkyChiefs, 1-0, in an International League game last night. Julio Santana, Joe Crowell and Wayne Gomes followed Telemaco and completed the shutout. Gomes got the game's final out for his first save of the season. Juan Sosa singled in Travis Chapman in the bottom of the third for the game's only run. Eric Valent went 2 for 3 for the Red Barons.

MOOSIC, Pa. - Former Phillie Jason Boyd got the win as the Pawtucket Red Sox beat the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, 5-3, in the International League last night. It was the second consecutive night a former Phillie had beaten the team's triple-A affiliate. Wayne Gomes was the winning pitcher for Pawtucket on Tuesday night. Marlon Byrd, who went 1 for 4, had Scranton's only RBI. Nick Punto was 2 for 4 with a triple and double and scored twice for the Red Barons. Norwich 3, Trenton 1 NORWICH, Conn.

The word from Clearwater was that David Coggin pitched extremely well in a morning minor-league game against the Toronto Blue Jays' triple-A squad. But it was hard to imagine that he pitched any better than Vicente Padilla did during the Phillies' 4-3 exhibition victory over the Cincinnati Reds yesterday at Ed Smith Stadium. Coggin pitched six innings and allowed two runs on six hits. He did not walk a batter and struck out four. Padilla countered in the afternoon with a five-inning, five-hit effort that was tarnished only by Juan Encarnacion's two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning.

For the first time this season, the Phillies slammed two home runs in the first inning of a game. That, from the Phillies' perspective, was the good news yesterday. The bad news: Omar Daal, pitching with a sore left ankle, had his worst outing in the last six weeks as the Phillies dropped a 6-2 decision to the San Diego Padres at sweltering Veterans Stadium, where the on-the-field temperature reached 148.7 degrees. The Phils' offense wasn't nearly as hot. So far, the same can be said for the beat-the-deadline trades made by general manager Ed Wade.

Randy Wolf, fresh off his first win as a starting pitcher since May 23, is being sent back to the Phillies' bullpen. This time, the move will be even more temporary than last time, and Wolf is not at all disturbed by it. "If they need me in there for an inning or a hitter and I can help us win the game, that's fine," he said yesterday, less than 12 hours after his rain-shortened, complete-game victory Wednesday night against the Colorado Rockies....

The Phillies, trying to shore up their bullpen for the Eastern Division pennant race, acquired veteran relievers Turk Wendell and Dennis Cook last night in a deal that sent minor-league pitchers Bruce Chen and Adam Walker to the New York Mets. In addition, the Phils acquired outfielder/infielder Felipe Crespo by trading reliever Wayne Gomes and cash to the San Francisco Giants. In the deal with the Mets, the Phils traded away two promising young pitchers and acquired a pair of veterans who helped New York win the National League championship last year.

Wayne Gomes wasn't officially charged with the Phillies' 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles last night at Camden Yards. He was, however, the target of some sharp criticism from manager Larry Bowa after surrendering the game's decisive hit to Brady Anderson on an 0-2 hanging curveball. The loss left the Phillies' lead over the second-place Atlanta Braves stuck at one game going into today's first-half finale at Camden Yards. That, of course, means that the Phillies will go into the all-star break at least tied with the Braves for first place in the National League East.