Roy Halladay pitched seven shutout innings and Erik Kratz homered in the third inning off of Joe Saunders, leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a 3-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The win snapped a four-game winning streak by Arizona.
Halladay, who has struggled through injury and effective this season, looked like the pitcher fans have been accustomed to seeing for many years. He allowed only three hits in seven innings and struck out five.
Joe Saunders looked like, at least to start, that he was going to match Halladay pitch for pitch. That was until Eric Kratz hit his fourth homer of the season. The in the fourth inning, Saunders got himself into trouble. With two outs, Ryan Howard singled and John Mayberry doubled. Saunders then walked Domonic Brown and Kratz to force in a run.
That would be all that Saunders would allow. He went six and one-third innings allowing just the two runs, six hits, two walks and struck out three.
Philly would pick up another insurance run in the eighth inning. With Mike Zagurski in the game, Kevin Frandsen singled and moved to second on a wild pitch. Ryan Howard singled with one out, but Frandsen had to hold at third. That is when Matt Albers made his Arizona debut. He struck out John Mayberry, but he gave up a single to Domonic Brown to score Frandsen.
Jonathan Papelbon pitched the ninth, allowing a hit, but closed the game out for his 24th save of the season.
The two teams will play the rubber game of the series on Sunday morning.
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