Major League Baseball

Halladay hit hard in second postseason start

Published Oct. 17, 2010 6:09 a.m. ET

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Roy Halladay is hittable, after all, this postseason. Who knew?

Halladay, the Philadelphia Phillies ace who tossed a no-hitter vs. the Cincinnati Reds last week, saw his hitless streak end in the left-field seats. He allowed two solo homers to Cody Ross and pitched like a mere mortal in a 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night.

''You find out what you're made of. You never expect it to be easy,'' Halladay said. ''If you can't handle failure at this point, you're in the wrong business.''

Working on nine days' rest, Halladay's postseason hitless streak ended at 11 innings when Ross homered off him in the NL championship series opener.

Halladay's dud of an encore means he will have to watch for a while now, as the Phillies try to crawl out of this 0-1 hole. Game 2 is on Sunday, and Halladay won't take the mound again until Game 4 at the earliest, in San Francisco. That said, manager Charlie Manuel said he hadn't yet thought about bringing back Halladay on three days' rest for Game 4.

''He's going to give up some runs sometimes,'' Manuel said.

Ross was only 3 for 16 (.188) with one RBI against Halladay in his career. But the right fielder, batting eighth, hit a pair of fastballs to almost the same location just a few rows deep in the left seats. The homers hurt the 21-game winner, but it was a close call against Halladay that really aided the Giants.

Halladay retired the first two batters in the sixth, then Buster Posey singled. On an 0-2 pitch, Halladay thought he struck out Pat Burrell - and so did 45,929 towel-waving Phillies fans. Umpire Derryl Cousins, however, simply called the curve that seemed to catch the plate ball one. Instead of inning over, trailing 2-1, Halladay would leave in a bigger hole.

Burrell doubled on the next pitch after left fielder Raul Ibanez mistimed a leap to make it 3-1. Juan Uribe followed with an RBI single to stake the Giants to a three-run lead.

Ibanez said the ball smacked off the heel of his glove.

''I thought it was going to go up off the top of the wall,'' Ibanez said. ''By the time I jumped against the wall to use a little leverage, the ball was a little lower than I thought.''

Halladay thought he fanned Burrell, but refused to criticize Cousins.

''It's part of it,'' Halladay said. ''There were obviously calls they wanted, too. If you don't get a pitch, you have to make the next one.''

The extra runs proved to be the difference, as Jayson Werth hit a two-run homer in the sixth to conclude the scoring.

Halladay's line - so dazzling against the Reds with the ''0'' in the hit column - was ordinary. He gave up eight hits, four runs, walked none and struck out seven in seven innings. He threw 73 strikes out of 105 pitches.

''Can he pitch better than that? Yeah, of course, he can,'' Manuel said. ''But tonight, they hit some balls good on him.''

In contrast, in two more innings vs. the Reds, Halladay threw 104 pitches, 79 for strikes.

The seven-time All-Star set down the first seven Giants hitters before Ross homered with one out in the third. According to baseball scoring rules, Halladay, who lost for the first time since Aug. 30, only gets credit for two hitless innings against San Francisco.

Halladay's string of no-hit innings is the second longest in postseason history, STATS LLC said. Don Larsen put together a streak of 11 1-3 innings for the New York Yankees - he pitched a perfect game against Brooklyn in the 1956 World Series, then added 2 1-3 hitless innings in relief against Milwaukee in the 1957 Series. Johnny Vander Meer remains the only pitcher to throw consecutive no-hitters, doing it in 1938 for Cincinnati.

Earlier in the day, Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson visited Citizens Bank Park to pick up a jersey and game-used ball from Halladay's no-hitter. The mementoes will be on display within a week at the museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Halladay won't be taking any keepsakes home from this one.

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