Roy Halladay dazzled the home crowd and the bats stayed hot even though the weather was cool and rainy at Citizens Bank Park Friday night. Halladay went eight innings as the Phillies beat the Florida Marlins 8-6 in the first game of the series.
Halladay was strong once again only giving up two runs and eight hits. He had four strikeouts on the night and even added another hit to help his cause.
The Phils got out to another early lead with three runs in the first inning and a 5-0 lead after the third inning, knocking around Marlins starter Anibal Sanchez.
The defending NL champs put up eight runs with an astounding 12 hits to give Doc a 3-0 record and the Phils an 8-2 start on the season.
The Phils did most of their damage in the first and seventh innings with three runs in each. Polanco and Utley both went deep as they continued their blistering pace. The middle of the lineup continued to crush the ball as well with Utley, Howard and Werth all chipping in with two hits and two runs scored each.
Filling in for the injured Jimmy Rollins, Juan Castro went 2-for-3 with three RBIs.
The rain started to become an issue in the later innings as the time between innings had to be increased to dry the field.
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Halladay did not come out for the ninth inning after throwing 100 pitches. David Herndon came in to finish off the Marlins in the ninth but instead got hit around for four runs, forcing Madson to come in and give the Phillies their eighth win of the year.
The Marlins were able to make the game a lot closer than it should have been. They brought the winning run to the plate in the ninth. Madson then got Jorge Cantu to ground out to end the game and end Cantu’s streak of one hit and one RBI in 10 straight games.
