0 for the Homestand: Doc Halladay out-duels Roy Oswalt

Today the Astros showed that they can play competent baseball. They out-hit the Phillies, played error-less ball and shut them out after the second inning. Still, the great equalizer was Roy Halladay who was just as good as advertised in stymieing the Astros en route to the series sweep. In what has to be the most frustrating beginning to any of his professional seasons, Roy Oswalt has lost consecutive starts to the prohibitive NL Cy Young favorites.

JD made a point that I had been thinking about since Game 1 of the series: this Phillies club is as close to the Yankees or Red Sox as the NL gets. In the first two games especially, foul balls, long counts and frustration was the result du jour. This was the case again on Sunday afternoon. Roy O pitched well enough to win, but was challenged every at bat, throwing 114 pitches in six innings. After a rough first two innings, he threw strikes and did what he had to do to keep his out matched team in the game. It would be all for naught, as Halladay threw his 10th complete game since the beginning of the 2009 season.

The Astros were able to scrape across a run in the sixth, when Cory Sullivan grounded into a double play with the bases loaded and nobody out. That wouldn't be the last opportunity to score either. With runners on second and third and but one out, JR Towles grounded a hard hit ball right at Halladay- he looked the runner at third back and tossed to first. A Carlos Lee deep foul ball on the first pitch of the ninth inning could have tied her up, but come on, there was no doubt it wouldn't come back into fair territory.

Well, here we are. No wins yet. Last team in the majors to have a 0 in the W column. Good thing we're on our way to St. Louis, right??? Wandy, Brett Myers and young Mr. Norris have been tagged to stop the bleeding.