Roy Halladay looked in midseason form as he and Jonathon Papelbon combined on a 2-hit shutout as the Phillies beat the Pirates 1-0 on opening day in Major League Baseball. Doc allowed two hits to the first two batters of the day and that was it. He would strike out 5 over 8 innings and even added a hit.
The Phils' offense today came mostly from Carlos Ruiz, who finished 3-3 with a sac fly to knock in the only run of the day. That came in the 7th when Ty Wigginton singled and John Mayberry Jr (2-4 on the day) doubled. Ruiz hit the sac fly to right to score Wiggington, but the rally would end when rookie Freddy Galvis grounded out to short.
Speaking of Galvis, it was about as poor of a debut as could be imagined for the young second baseman. He was 0-4 on the day, grounding into two double plays and striking out. According to Dan Roche, he's just the second player since 1947 to ground into double plays in each of his first two major league at bats.
The Phillies biggest offseason acquisition, Jonathon Papelbon, came to pitch a perfect ninth for his first save as a Phillie.
In the absence of Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, great pitching and good defense (particularly from John Mayberry today) is probably what it's going to take to win ball games. With Halladay, Lee & Hamels at the top of the rotation, the Phils can do that, as we saw today.
Cliff Lee makes his season debut Saturday night against Jeff Karstens as the series continues.