Phillies ace Roy Halladay tossed another masterpiece for seven innings and reliever Chad Durbin locked-down the Florida Marlins over the final two innings. Despite the newest member of the walking-wounded 1st baseman Ryan Howard hitting the DL with a sprained left ankle, rightfielder Ben Francisco and catcher Carlos Ruiz each had a monster game hitting back-to-back against Marlin starter lefthander Sean West. Halladay gave up 5 hits in seven innings while walking 1 and striking out 9. His only mistake was 2nd baseman Dan Uggla’s second inning solo dinger for the Marlin’s only run. Halladay, Francisco, Ruiz led the Phillies past the Marlins by a 6-1 score in their series opener.
With their win, the Phils now stand 2 games behind the NL East division-leading Atlanta Braves who were edged by the 3rd place Mets. The Mets sit 6 1/2 games behind the Braves and 1/2 game up on the 4th place Marlins.
The Phils went to work early on 24 year old lefthander Sean West. Francisco led off the second inning with a solo homer and Ruiz followed with his own shot back-to-back and the Phils were up 2-0. When Uggla led off the Marlins’ second inning with a solo shot, it looked like this might be one of those games… But Halladay was masterful after that spreading out the remaining 4 Marlins hits and 1 walk.
And the Phils ace help himself with the bat as well. Leading 2-1 in the Phils fourth inning, Francisco and Ruiz, who were in the center of all of the Phillies scoring, singled and doubled respectively. After subbing 2nd baseman Wilson Valdez was intentionally walked loading the bases. But Halladay made the Marlins pay for the disrespect of the intentional walk with a 2 run-scoring single and Phils were up 4-1.
The Marlins mounted their only mild threats in the fourth and seventh inning. Halladay issued his only walk in the fourth, and a 1 out single put runners a 1st and 2nd base. A fielder’s choice grounder put runners at the corners. But “the Doc” struck out rookie rightfielder Mike Stanton to end the inning. In the seventh, consecutive singles put runners at 1st and 2nd base with 1 out. Halladay then got catcher Ronny Paulino to ground into a doubleplay advancing a runner to 3rd base. But Halladay got a fly out to end the seventh inning threat.
Ruiz added a 2 out RBI single in the fifth inning to plate the 5th run and Valdez singled in the 6th run in the seventh inning with a 2 out RBI single to shallow leftfield which scored 3rd baseman Placido Polanco.
After 109 pitches, Chad Durbin was sent out to spell Halladay to open the eighth inning. Durbin gave up a harmless 2 out double in the eighth, but Uggla’s leadoff single and Paulino’s 2 out double made Durbin’s ninth inning a bit dicey. But in-between the single and double, Durbin recorded 2 strikeouts and ended the game by striking out the side.
Click here for AP’s game recap for Yahoo.
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