Phillies 12, Reds 5
WP – Roy Halladay (7-7, 3.95)
LP – Mike Leake (5-8, 4.59)
PHILADELPHIA — On a day where Roy Halladay didn’t have his best stuff, the offense provided him with enough so he didn’t have to be.
Big days by John Mayberry and Ryan Howard fueled a 12-5 romp of the Reds in Philadelphia, a strong open to a four-game set with the best team in the National League.
The 5th inning provided to be brutal for both starting pitchers. With the Phillies up 3-2, Halladay was tapped for a big three spot in the 5th inning.
Chris Heisey smacked an RBI double to tie the game up 3-3. After Jay Bruce’s RBI single made it 4-3, Bruce got himself caught in a run down to enable Brandon Phillips to score from third and give Cincinnati a 5-3 lead.
The Phillies responded right away in the bottom half. Chase Utley hit a one-out double to score Juan Pierre and make it a 5-4 game. After intentionally walking Howard, Mike Leake gave up an RBI single to Mayberry to tie the game and a two-run double to Domonic Brown before being pulled from the game.
With the Phillies taking the 7-5 lead at that point they poured it on the rest of the game. Mayberry’s two-run homer in the 6th extended their lead to 10-5 following a sacrifice fly by Utley and the Phils tacked two more runs on thanks to Pierre and Erik Kratz to cap off the scoring.
Halladay was able to complete seven innings, allowing five runs on 10 hits and a walk while striking out three. His fastball was hitting around 91 MPH and his cutter was only at around 87-88.
2B: Pierre (8), Utley (7), Brown (5), Rollins (26). HR: Howard (8), Kratz (7), Mayberry (11).
TTB 