Live Blog: NLDS Game 1, Reds at Phillies

5:34 PM:  Alright, getting a bit of late start on this live blog, but I’m now fully settled in.  Roy Halladay has gone through the first two innings effortlessly, inducing four grounball outs.  Nice to see the Phils manufacture a run, with Victorino stealing third and Utley getting him home on a sac fly.  It’s great to get an early run on the inexperienced Volquez.  He’s the kind of guy that would most likely gain confidence as the game went along if he was shutting them down.

5:39 PM:  Obviously the big news prior to the game was that Polanco is out with a sore back.  Pretty bad news.  I don’t like how it threw the team for a loop, psychologically, right before the start of the playoffs.  As for the tangible results, Rollins is at the top of the order, and Wilson Valdez takes over at third and hits 8th.  Valdez makes just his 4th start of the year at third (and 8th of his career) so there is a tiny bit of concern there, but he certainly has the tools to be a really good defensive third baseman.

Polanco, of course, is a masterful #2 hitter that contributes offensively in so many ways that you just don’t get with Rollins and Victorino up there.  But Jimmy and Shane certainly bring their own tools, as we saw with Shane stealing third in the 1st.  What we’ll get from Rollins is the bigger question.

5:46 PM:  RBI from Halladay!! Well, if Volquez wasn’t rattled already, he has to be now.  A two-out RBI surrendered to the pitcher, wow.  And it was set-up by a surprising mental mistake by veteran SS Orlando Cabrera, who seemingly had a play on Valdez at 1st but tried for second and couldn’t get the ball there on the previous play.  If the Reds want to win this series, these are the exact kind of things they can’t afford, especially from their veterans.  Bullpen activity here in the 2nd for Cincy.

5:56 PM:  Well, we said Volquez was a high risk/high reward choice by the Reds, and it pretty much blew up in their faces.  He was working from behind in the count the whole time he was out there, which turned out to be just 1.2 innings, as he follows the Halladay single with a walk to Rollins and 2-run single to Victorino.  4-0 Phils!  Hey, remember how good Victorino is in the playoffs? I’d almost forgotten.  Man, this team is tough this time of year.

6:00 PM:  Hopefully Halladay isn’t thrown off by that long inning and having to run the bases.  I doubt it, but I guess you never know.

6:13 PM:  This is certainly not the most logical time to give some criticism to Ruben Amaro, but I’ll do it anyway.  I supported the Polanco signing, and I love the guy, but I did say on this blog in the off-season that I thought Adrian Beltre was the best option on the market.  All Beltre did with Boston this year was hit .321 with 28 homers, and an AL-leading 49 doubles, while playing a Gold Glove-caliber third base.  He also did all of that for just a one year/$9 million contract, which is less than Polanco made this year in the first year of  3-year deal.  “Sore back” is an old man injury, and Beltre is four years younger than Placido.  Also, it would be a lot easier to stomach letting Jayson Werth walk if we had a power right-handed bat like Beltre in tow.  So, in sum, the Polanco signing was a nice one, but that doesn’t mean it was the best choice.  That’s all done with now, but seemed worth mentioning today.

6:23 PM:  I just don’t even know what to say about Halladay anymore.  He’s an absolute master.  He’s like Greg Maddux, only with 5 more MPH on his fastball.  He throws like 5 different pitches, and that’s not including like 3 different fastballs.  Every single pitch has late movement, and he has complete command over every one of them.  12 for 12 on first-pitch strikes, and he’s perfect through 4 innings, against the top offense in the NL.

6:35 PM:  Our old friend Cliff Lee beat the Rays today, going 7 innings, 1 run, with 10 strike outs.  We’ve gotten to watch some fairly decent pitching over the last couple years, huh?

6:48 PM:  Bry’s comment below: “This Travis Wood guy really gives the Phillies fits. Didn’t he take a no-hitter into the 9th inning against us in the regular season?”. Yeah, I think he did. A lot of people thought the Reds should’ve had him in the rotation for this series. Looks like they made a mistake there, but I guess he could very well start Game 4, if there is one.

6:56 PM:  Another unforced error by the Reds, as reliever Logan Ondrusek fires the ball way over the head of Votto and Ibanez gets to second on the two-base error.  Looks like some nerves there for the rookie.  I’m guessing he didn’t experience anything like the Bank in a playoff game this year, or in his life.  Let’s see if the Phils can capitalize again.

6:58 PM:  In case you’re wondering: 69 pitches for Halladay through 6 innings.  So, the complete game is very much in play, even if the no-no is lost.

7:07 PM:  Wow, Joey Votto playing some mind games with Halladay and stepping out on him late twice in this at-bat.  First of all, Joey, if you’re the NL MVP, act like it.  You shouldn’t need some weak nonsense like that.  Second of all, this isn’t Edinson Volquez or some pitcher you’re used to seeing, this is Roy Halladay.  He’s barely human.

7:35 PM:  Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

7:45 PM:  Well, folks, numerous times in my life my grandfather told me about the day in 1956 that he spent in a hospital in New York City after breaking his arm playing Gaelic football. He was listening to the World Series on the radio, and a guy named Don Larsen threw a perfect game for the Yankees.  Roy Halladay has just become the second pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter in the playoffs, and I’m guessing we’ll all be telling people about it 50 years from now that aren’t even born yet.

It wasn’t a World Series game, but it was a Phillie, so the story will loom just as large for us.  And Don Larsen was an average career pitcher who had the day of his life.  Halladay is a future Hall-of-Famer, at the peak of his powers.  He waited his whole life to pitch a playoff game, and eleven years as a major leaguer.  To go out and not only pitch well in the biggest game of your life, but to pitch as well as you ever have, which is about as well as any pitcher ever has in the history of this game, is just incredible.  What can we even say? 

Better writers than me will put this in its context in the coming days.  What a game for Halladay and for the Phillies and for us fans.  What this means going forward:  Halladay has put his September doldrums far behind him.  The extra rest seems to have served him well.  We rode Cole Hamels in ’08, Cliff Lee in ’09, and hopefully Halladay this year, with two pretty decent guys backing him up.  They’ll be a tough out.

As for this series, the Reds just experienced the feeling of being out-classed in pretty much every way.  They surely realize now: they’re dealing with the best, and they need to step up their game, eliminate the fielding errors, throw strikes, and get the bat on the ball if they want to have a chance in this series.

7:47 PM:  Some fans had some shirts referencing the “Double Rainbow” guy.  I feel like that guy after watching that performance.  The first thing Roy does in his interview is give credit to Carlos.  What a guy.  What a pitcher. Amazing.

8:13 PM:  Another classic Charlie line after the game:  “That’s what I call good managin’.”