SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Miraculous middle-aged Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer is just a bit different, and that might explain why he's attempting to do what no one has ever done. Moyer, just months shy of his AARP card, had his own explanation for why no pitcher has ever won a regular-season game as a starting pitcher at age 49.

"Nobody's tried it,'' he said.

Moyer, though, might be on the verge of becoming the first. He is the story of the spring. And while he may not yet have clinched the No. 5 spot in the Rockies' rotation -- he remains in a battle for that last job with two guys who together have lived about as long as he has, Tyler Chatwood, 22, and Guillermo Moscoso, 28 -- if he gets through the rest of spring OK, it's getting easier to imagine what at first seemed impossible.

Moyer is apparently the one guy who doesn't think about his age, or tries not to, no matter how many times he is asked. "If age had a bearing on this I wouldn't be doing it,'' Moyer said. "It's based on how I feel.''

And, according to him, he feels terrific.

"I felt good when I walked off the field, I feel good now and I expect to feel good tomorrow,'' said Moyer, who struggled but got through four innings in his penultimate start in Arizona.

He talks a superb game, even on a day he has a bad one. That's just him. He always thinks he can do it, even after a game in which he was often in three-ball counts and threw far too many pitches.

"He wasn't too good today,'' a scout said.

But that mindset of his may be why he's last longer than anyone else. Jack Quinn won a game as a starter at age 48 in 1932. Moyer would set a record with just one win as a starter.

"I intend to win more than one game,'' he said, flatly.

Some might think he's sounding so confident to mask a so-so performance, and he certainly wasn't anything better than that in lasting 89 pitches and allowing three runs in four innings to the White Sox. He's got some good spin on his slow and slower pitches, and he can spin a sorry outing, too.

"I was around the plate. I just missed on a lot of pitches,'' he said. "Unfortunately, they chose not to swing.''

Note the word there: they "chose'' not to swing. Some might suggest it's his job to induce them to swing.

Moyer said that getting to 89 pitches was a plus (he had 45 great ones in his previous outing), disregarding that many of them weren't good pitches.

He also said he needs to have games "pitched under duress ... because during the season you're going to have games pitched under duress.'' Which suggests that pitching less than his best was a plus.

The other nice thing about that answer: It presumes there will be a season for him, which is that confidence speaking again.

Moyer said he hasn't heard a word about his chances from the Rockies. Yet, he spoke like a man on the verge of playing in the big leagues.

"I feel like I've competed, and I've competed quite well,'' he said.

He is just crazy enough to think he was making it from the moment he got here. Maybe that's the secret to his crazy longevity.