Halladay goes 4-0 ….

A day later and the pen get the day off, not because they blew it yesterday,
but because ‘the Doc’ allowed it to happen. With the help of some
outstanding defense, from the likes of Victorino, Utley,
Castro, Howard and himself, Roy Halladay pitched his way to a
shut-out through 9 innings.

He managed to get into the 4th inning without even giving up a hit, at one
point it looked as if the defense coupled with his outstanding pitching was
going to let him cruise through 9 innings in less than 100 pitches, by the 7th
he had been averaging 11 pitches an inning.

Victorino’s home run saver early on was a key play in giving the Phillies
the confidence to move on from last night and shut the Braves down. Ryan
Howard was stretched to the limited in an acrobatic move that would be more
fitting for one of those dance shows, it was definitely a first to see the big
1st baseman stretched in the splits at first base to get the out, amazingly he
still kept his foot on the bag. There was also one of Utley’s all
familiar shuffle passes to Castro for the start of a crucial inning
ending double play.

With run scoring plays in both the 2nd and 6th innings the Phillies
needed nothing else to seal this win other than the 9 innings from ‘the Doc’. It
was without question though Roy Halladay that made all this possible, he
is now the first pitcher to go 4-0 in 2010, he also has a 4 win streak started,
he has maintained his average of every 3 wins he throws a complete game.

Tomorrow is the rubber game of this 3 game series, then the Phillies
start a trek out west stopping in the desert for a 3 game set against Arizona,
before heading on to San Francisco for 3 against the Giants.
Although it would be kind of stupid to go to San Francisco for 3
games against the Mets or Dodgers, so I guess some
of that was just filler.