Josh Johnson shines as Florida Marlins defeat Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 – Part 2
In the much awaited face off of the two pitching aces, Roy Halladay and Josh Johnson, the Florida Marlins managed to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1.
While pitching, Halladay, the reigning Cy Young winner gave up a mere five hits in the eight innings that he pitched. While this may be good news for him, the bad news was that he fell to 1-3 in his four match-ups against Johnson.
"I'm kind of hoping he goes and plays somewhere else," Halladay said.
This particular loss also ended Halladay’s streak of wins in 13 consecutive starts against the National League East team since July 5, 2010.
This was his first time pitching in Miami since last year when he had delivered his perfect game. Ironically enough, that night it was Johnson who was the losing pitcher.
The walk issued by Roy at the start of the third inning was his eighth since the season began. Halladay realised himself how crucial the walk was as he said, "The walk definitely cost me, you can't afford to do that. I was definitely not thrilled about it."
The Marlins, however were rejoicing the walk. "A great at-bat -- one of the best at-bats in the game,“ Edwin Rodriguez, the manager for the Marlins said. "JJ should be very proud of that."
In the last match, Florida was criticised for their fielding mistakes but in this match it was the National League leading Phillies that let mistakes hinder their chances of winning for the second time against the Marlins. The Phillies stranded 10 runners
and went zero for six with their runners at scoring positions.
The Phillies had seven base runners in the first three innings of the match but only one out of the three managed to score. That one who scored was Howard. "I made a terrible pitch to Howard and paid for it," Johnson said. "That's what he's good at."
The Phillies went on to load the bases after that but Johnson successfully struck-out Dane Sardinha and Halladay as well as Rollins.
"You have a guy on the ropes," Rollins said. "That would have been a good way to blow the game open. We didn't take advantage.”
The only run that Philadelphia managed came in the second inning when Howard belted out a home-run that flew almost 349 feet.
The first run for the Marlins came in the third inning as Bonifacio hit a sacrifice fly off which Johnson scored. The next run came in the eighth inning when Coughlin singled and Omar Infante scored off it.
The Marlins put in a good performance and managed to contain the Phillies offence to take a convincing win.
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