The Philadelphia Phillies' offense erupted on Saturday night in Game 1 of their NLDS matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals en route to an 11-6 win. Roy Halladay toyed with his prey momentarily, allowing the Cardinals to jump out to an early lead before slamming the door and looking like his usual dominant self while earning the win.
Cardinals Vs. Phillies: Highlights From The Game 1 Live-Blog
Below are some of the highlights of the Baseball Nation live-blog, which tells the story of the game in bite-sized portions.
Halladay got off to a less than ideal start, giving up a single to Rafael Furcal, a walk to Albert Pujols, and throwing this pitch to Lance Berkman.
You can probably figure out where this ball ended up (SPOILER: the seats). With one swing of the bat, the Cardinals took a 3-0 lead after just an inning.
As Grant Brisbee noted, Berkman’s home run was quite surprising as Halladay just doesn’t give up three-run home runs very often.
The last time he allowed a three-run home run? It was August 21, 2008, when Hideki Matsui hit one against Halladay.
As Halladay labored through the first inning, Kyle Lohse hit the ground running for the Cardinals. Through three innings, Lohse had thrown just 23 pitches and had yet to allow a base-runner.
In all seriousness, though, Lohse is cruising, even if he's not missing any bats. And after the iffy first inning, Halladay is looking like his regular robot self. The Cardinals might not score again. But if the Phillies don't start driving the ball against Kyle Lohse -- Kyle Lohse -- the Cardinals won't need to score.
Lohse bid for a 69-pitch perfect game went out the window in the fourth as the Phillies got on the board on a Shane Victorino RBI single. And then the wheels came off, with Philadelphia tagging Lohse for five more runs in the sixth, three of which came on a Ryan Howard home run.
Lohse’s line? 5⅓ innings, 6 runs. You’d never know from looking at that that Lohse retired the first ten guys he faced. Dotel retired the next two guys to end the sixth, but now the Cardinals are behind three with nine outs to go, and Roy Halladay has set down 15 batters in a row. Things...things don’t look so good for St. Louis.
The Phillies added three more runs in the seventh, turning what appeared to be a close game early into rout. Meanwhile, Halladay continued to roll.
As I’ve written this, Halladay has retired the Cardinals 1-2-3 in the top of the eighth. That’s 21 in a row. He’s Roy Halladay.
The final score was 11-6, but the outburst by the Phillies’ bats, more than making up for Halladay’s shaky first inning, probably doesn’t bode well for the Cardinals. With the win, Philadelphia took a 1-0 series lead, and stands just two games away from an NLCS berth.
For more on the game, be sure to read through the live-blog and Jeff Sullivan’s game recap.
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