With the Phillies Struggling, Roy Halladay Comes To the Rescue

Let’s go old school for a second. Old school as in a game starts at 7:05 and ends at 9:14. That’s old school and means a very well-pitched game took place.

With the Philadelphia Phillies struggling, losing five of their last seven, they needed one of their pitchers to step up. That pitcher was Roy Halladay.

In a crucial three game series with the first-place Atlanta Braves, the Phillies drew first blood as Halladay outdueled Derek Lowe 3-1 in front of 45,000 plus at Citizens Bank Park.

It took Halladay only 93 pitches to toss his seventh complete game of the season. He scattered five hits while whiffing seven in the winning effort.

Watching Halladay pitch was a thing of beauty last night. He was busting lefties down and in and had righties flailing down and away all night. Halladay forced the Braves to swing at his pitches and nothing else. That is what happens when you throw 74 percent first pitch strikes.

Look at his pitch chart from last night…

The Braves featured five lefties in the lineup and Halladay just killed them inside all night. Halladay barely threw any pitches inside to righties or outside to lefties.

The Braves did have a game plan to combat Halladay, but Halladay had none of it. The game plan was to try to get to Halladay early in the count. Five of the first seven batters of the game swung at the first pitch.

I thought it was a good game plan to be honest. If Halladay has a tendency to throw first pitch strikes, then why not try to get to him early? The odds are they were not going to wear Halladay out, so it was better early than never in this case.

The Phillies moved within four games of the Braves last night. Halladay’s brilliant pitching was the reason why.

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