Halladay, Phillies clip Blue Jays' wings

EVERYTHING WAS just a little bit off, underscoring the surreal nature of the sticky evening.

Roy Halladay, who earned his "Doc" nickname wearing the Blue Jays crest, started against the homestanding Jays last night . . . in a Phillies uniform.

In the Phillies' ballpark.

The G20 Summit in Toronto forced the interleague series between the teams to be moved to Philadelphia, with the Blue Jays designated as the home team. Which meant that they batted last . . . and that Halladay would not return to the city where he invested his time and talents for 11 years, winning 148 games and the 2003 Cy Young Award.

The way Halladay pitched last night, they could have played at The Hague. The Jays still would have held no advantage.

Halladay leaned on a sharp cutter as he dealt seven shutout innings in the Phillies' 9-0 win over the team that traded him for prospects in the offseason. He left having surrendered six hits on 106 pitches, with that nine-run lead.

Jose Contreras and David Herndon followed him with a scoreless inning apiece.

Scoreless bullpen innings: Another unusual development for the Phillies lately.

Nothing was more off-kilter than seeing Halladay face the team that drafted him in the first round in 1995, nurtured him and saw him blossom. A tunnel-vision sort, he was especially reserved Thursday and last night: little conversation with his teammates and no contact with the opposition.

"He was all business," catcher Brian Schneider said. "No cracking any smiles. No saying 'Hi' to anybody."

That might happen today or tomorrow, Halladay said. At least, he agreed, he didn't have to face them in Canada.

"It helped a little bit," Halladay said. "Going back there would've brought up more memories . . . That would've brought it home a little more."

So, instead, he was removed, in the theater of the bizarre.

"It was a weird day," said shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who, true to the theme, walked four times, the first time he's done that in a nine-inning game. He averages about four walks every 2 weeks. "Even walking into the clubhouse, seeing the gray [road] uniforms hanging in your locker. It felt like a spring training game - like it almost didn't count."

It counted.

They have now won four in a row and seven of nine, though they remain in third place in the National League East behind the Braves and Mets. They also scored at least six runs for the seventh time in their last nine, after their offense deserted them in the 6-15 stretch that cost them first place.

Halladay didn't need all of those runs.

His healthy pitch count on the steamy, 85-degree night in his 16th start of the season kept manager Charlie Manuel from allowing Halladay a chance at a fourth shutout this season and a sixth complete game overall.

"With a lead like that, we don't want him to finish the game," Manuel explained.

Halladay leads the league with 122 innings pitched. His 2.29 earned run average is fourth. Last night, it had only a slight chance of rising.

Lyle Overbay's broken-bat single to start the third gave the Jays their first baserunner. He was erased on a doubleplay. Jose Bautista hit a two-out ground-rule double in the fourth and was stranded.

Aaron Hill crushed a double off the leftfield wall with one out in the fifth. Halladay allowed a subsequent single, but fanned John Buck, the third of Halladay's four strikeouts. Halladay then coaxed Jarrett Hoffpauir to ground out to first.

That was the tightest spot of Halladay's night.

This was a timely return to dominance for Halladay, whose early excellence in his first season as a Phillie set an almost unattainable predecent.

He improved to 9-6 last night, but was 1-3 in his four starts since his perfect game May 29 at Florida, had lost three straight, and was looking at a four-game losing streak for the first time in his career.

But, really, it wasn't that bad in that stretch.

Halladay had one bad start, a six-run, six-inning outing June 15 at the Yankees, baseball's best team. In the other three, he had allowed a total of six earned runs, had lasted eight innings twice and seven innings once, and had received four runs of support.

However, he was 0-3 in his previous three interleague starts.

Of course, those opposing players had seen him firing at them. The Blue Jays had only watched him from behind; only six Jays had faced Halladay, and he'd surrendered only seven hits to them. Halladay said his familiarity with his former teammates did not help him prepare.

Halladay's circumstance - pitching a road game at home against the only other team he'd ever played for - accentuated a night when oddity became the norm.

There were Rollins' walks. There was Placido Polanco grounding into three doubleplays; he'd grounded into five all season.

There was Howard driving in Polanco with a two-strike stroke off lefty reliever David Purcey. Howard was hitting .228 against lefties. There was lefty hitter Ross Gload, who, two outs later, drove a ball into the right-centerfield alley for a three-run double, which gave Gload four RBI, tying his career high and delighting the impromptu sellout crowd of 43,076.

Appropriately, surreally, the attendance counts toward the Jays' season total, though the teams split the gate.

But they couldn't share Halladay. *