I said yesterday that it would be great to see the Phillies break out against Josh Johnson, but that that was pretty unlikely.
I was wrong, and I’m very happy about that.
After going down 1-0 in the second I again began to wonder “Can they come back from this?” And come back they did.
The Phillies tagged Josh Johnson for six runs over 3 2/3 innings. They managed to rattle off 11 hits from the Marlins ace who is now 0-2 on the season.
That’s right 11 hits, and 14 total in the game.
Roy Halladay was again masterful. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first, and allowed just one run over seven innings. He had a few battles early that got his pitch count up over 6o in the first three innings, but Roy did his thing and made great work of the Marlins over the next four. Once the Phillies put up the 5 spot in the third, you could tell that Halladay was able to pitch a little more freely.
“I think I looked up in the third and I had thrown 60 pitches,” Halladay said. ”At that point, you’d be happy with six. After it’s over, you’re never happy with six. I think it’s satisfying when you go through a game where you’re scuffling to get through four or five innings because of the pitch count and you’re able to get through six or seven innings.
Halladay has the Phillies only two wins, and he’s allowed just one run and seven hits through his first 15 innings of work. That’s an impressive 0.60 ERA and 0.53 WHIP.
The feel good moment of the night came in the when Freddy Galvis came to the plate with chants of ”Freddy, Freddy, Freddy,” echoing throughout the park, and Galvis answered the call with a double to right field giving the Phillies a 5-1 lead.
Pretty cool moment for a rookie.
Galvis was a bit of a scape goat for the first four games of the Phillies season, but let’s remember that this kid is a rookie, and if you look up and down the lineup, nobody was really hitting much more then him. He’s now got two big hits, and leads the team in RBI. He’s really got a great glove, probably better then Utley a this point, and if you can get him to hit .235 or higher until Utley comes back, you’re getting much more then you ever could have asked for.
Back to those hits.
It should be noted that the Phillies 14 hits came from all over the lineup. In fact, every player in the starting lineup, with the exception Halladay had a hit. Ruiz and Galvis both had extra base hits, and six different players registered an RBI.
I really like this lineup. Good balance of power and speed. I’m still not sold on Jimmy batting 3rd, but it worked tonight. Mayberry still is struggling a bit, but I like him at first more then any of the other options that we have at this point.
All in all, a good clean game for the Phils, and a good game for Galvis who again looked sharp at second base.
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