On paper, Tuesday night’s Phillies-Marlins game looked like it was going to be a low scoring affair. With a pair of aces opposing each other on the mound, it didn’t seem like many runs would be scored. Roy Halladay and Josh Johnson were both as good as advertised.
Johnson gave the Phillies opportunities to score early in the game, but was able to consistently pitch himself out of trouble.
In the top of the 2nd inning, Johnson started the inning by giving up a homerun to Ryan Howard. The 27-year old pitcher then gave up a double to Raul Ibanez, hit Ben Francisco with a pitch, and walked Pete Orr. It could have been a terrible inning for the Oklahoma native, but he was able to keep his composure, and get out of the inning without giving up anymore runs, striking out Dane Sardinha and Roy Halladay, and forcing Jimmy Rollins to ground out.
Johnson loaded the bases again in the 3rd inning, but once again worked his way out of trouble, getting Pete Orr to ground out to end the inning. He finished the night after throwing seven innings, allowing one run on six hits, striking out seven, and walking three batters.
The Phillies offense can be blamed for letting Johnson off of the hook, but it shows a lot about the young ace’s composure and ability that he was able to work out of both of those jams without allowing runs to score.
Halladay also turned in a solid performance, throwing all eight innings for the Phillies. He gave allowed two runs (one earned) on five 
hits, struck out nine, and walked two.
While the Cy Young Award winner pitched well enough to win, he ended up taking the loss for several reasons. First, the offense couldn’t deliver the knockout punch to Johnson in either of the innings that they had the bases loaded. The Phillies lineup has been hot and cold all season, and unfortunately for Halladay this would be one of the cold nights for the bats.
Then in the third inning, the Phillies’ ace made a critical mistake, issuing a walk to Johnson, the first time Halladay had walked a pitcher in his career. He would later come around to score on a sacrifice fly.
In the 8th inning, the defense let Halladay down. Jimmy Rollins allowed Omar Infante to reach on a fielding error. Chris Coghlan would 
score Infante with an EBI single later in the inning.
It was a game where both teams would have very little room for errors. The two aces came up with exceptional outings. Though neither starter was exactly dominating, it was impressive to watch both pitchers work their way out of trouble throughout the game. Roy Halladay didn’t make many mistakes, but the few that he did make turned out to be the difference in the game. Josh Johnson was better at working out of trouble in this game than his opponent was, and the Marlins dealt Halladay his second loss of the season.
This “Phillies Lite” Batting line-up is beginning to rear it’s lack of punch and power and wasted another Pitching gem by a Starter…
In the last 20 ballgames, the Phils have scores 67 runs (Average of 2.9 Runs per game which will not beat the top Teams)
Birdobeaman prediction of 119 Wins sounds a little ridiculous at this point ..
Phils are 23-12 with 96 games remaining to be played, for them to achieve 119 Wins as he predicted, Phils would have to win 75% of their games and go 96-31 the rest of the way…Does anyone realistically think this will happen with this Batting Line-up..Time will tell, but Florida and the Braves will make it for a tight race for both Teams have solid Pitching too but better bullpens than the Phils, that will allow them to win more games in the late innings where the Phils have to hope their Starters go deeper in games which will catch up to them as the Season progresses.
I came on here 3 weeks ago and said they need another bat. They will hopefully get one at the trade deadline bc this is ridiculous… I have nothing more to say on this there losing games not bc of the pitching its the offense…
the Phillies need to deal Blanton or Worley and get a veteran right handed hitting RF ASAP. The platoon is not working – Francisco is a bench player
I’ve stated back in Febuary that this Batting line-up/Bullpen would be the downfall and actually the Bullpen has performed better than expected, but this line-up is not going to scare any good pitchers.. Who outside of R Howard do you have to fear and I am suprised that more teams just simply don’t pitch around Howard more often and let Francisco/Ibanez/Mayberry/Gload beat you..
The Positive is that Ruiz/Utley will return soon which will strengthen the line-up but how productive and healthy will Utley be will be tough to count on..
A couple of Right-Handed OF Free-Agent players I liked in the Off-season were Jeff Francouer and Matt Diaz who both signed 1-2 year cheap deals
with their Respsective teams Francouer to KC Royals and Diaz with the Pirates for about $2 to $2.5 Million, I believe Francouer has 8 HR’s 24 RBI’s and a solid Veteran Leadership in the Royals Locker room plus has a great arm from RF that is close to Werth’s arm.. ..
@Paulman –
The Phillies were interested in Francouer, but he chose the Royals because of his ties to GM Dayton Moore, who drafted him when he was in Atlanta.
With Ibanez playing lousy and the hole in RF, hopefully Utley is back by June/July and they get some help.
Ibanez has brought his average up about .40pts here in the last 10 games or so from about .195 to about .235.. If he can hit .250-.260 and get some clutch hits with about 15 HR’s and 75 RBi’s I think that’s about the most we can expect from his production at this stage of his career.
with Phillies scoring just 0 or 1 runs, Ibanez is not the only one playing lousy!!!!