Halladay can see the future

YOU HOPE he's right. You hope yesterday was the start of an inspiring renaissance for Roy Halladay, that the arm slot in his surgically repaired shoulder allows him to utilize the knowledge and skill that created his Hall of Fame resume more than his fastball ever did. You hope too that he's right about that fastball of his finding the 90s once again, if not by the end of this baseball season, by the start of the next.

Ah, but what price do you place on that hope? Do you wish to lace more of the future of the Phillies to that hope, especially after what you saw in yesterday's emergency start? To advocate spending millions of dollars to bring him back for 2014, sharing perhaps this belief that he expressed after allowing two runs and four hits over six innings yesterday in the Phillies' 9-5 victory over Arizona.

"It's a team that's not far away," Halladay said. "I know our record doesn't show that and where we are in the standings doesn't show that. But we have some young players who are really kind of coming into their own and some veteran guys who are starting to produce again. I think there's just a few pieces that if we can add we're right there."

This, of course, is the polar opposite of most opinions expressed about this team throughout this summer, both locally and nationally. To those voices, the Phillies are in a free-fall, damned by huge contracts paid to oft-injured and under-productive aging stars; damned by the annual missteps of a general manager for whom bullpen construction is a Rubic's cube; damned even, it is said, by a minor league system barren of projected stars.

And yet the Phillies have two young outfielders who have hit more home runs in 1 month than any other player in their league and yesterday Jake Diekman made his seventh straight appearance without issuing a walk, retiring the Diamondbacks in order in the ninth inning after veteran journeyman reliever J.C. Ramirez got sloppy and allowed a three-run bomb the inning before.

"I think we're starting to get that feeling again that we're never out of it," said Halladay. "The feeling I sensed in the middle of the year was that if we were down in a game we were going to have a hard time coming back. But the last week or so you're starting to get that sense back that we can overcome anything. So hopefully that's something we can continue to do and it carries over. That's the attitude you have to have in baseball. And it definitely has been a lot better than at certain points in the middle of the season."

Ah, be careful. Contributors to that feeling yesterday included Roger Bernadina and John Mayberry Jr. Each has been torturously inconsistent throughout their careers, and neither is a kid. Finally cut loose by Washington less than a week ago after 6 years there, Bernadina, 29, made two spectacular defensive plays, including scaling the centerfield wall to the right of the 401 mark to rob Matt Davison of a game-tying home run in the third inning.

"That was probably a game-changing play," said Halladay.

With three extra-base hits over the last two games, you hope that a change of scenery can return Bernadina to the kind of low-cost, valuable bench guy he was with the Nationals earlier in his career. As long as he doesn't cost too much and hits bombs like the one he connected on yesterday, Mayberry, too, is not a bad guy to have on your bench.

But these aren't the guys you build hope on. Partly due to injury, partly due to planning, the current squad is filled with guys on the field every day whom you would prefer to have coming off the bench.

And that's what might happen if Ryan Howard can return and hit 30 home runs again, if Chase Utley can stay on the field, if Jimmy Rollins can be taught to hit again the way Milt Thompson once did in making him an MVP . . . If Darin Ruf can translate his month of August into a full season the way Domonic Brown finally did this year. If Cody Asche . . .

Well, then, yes there is enough hope. Especially if yesterday was the next stage of Halladay's Hall of Fame career, and not the twitching muscles of the one that provided such magic in this town for 2 amazing, yet unfulfilling, years.

"With each time out, I'm progressing towards where I was," Halladay said. "But there's going to be changes. You always change over the course of your career . . . Just from talking to doctors, the velocity is going to be the last thing to come. They say you may pick up something over the course of the season but once you get that full winter's rest it's going to start coming back."

To 93 mph, he was asked. To the point where he can once again dominate, be in Cy Young conversations? "Maybe," he said, but that's not the goal. Never has been.

"I just want to win games," Halladay said. "And win a World Series. I'm not worried about anything else to be honest with you. You always have look forward. You can't ever look back. I'm not trying to replicate anything in the past."

philly.com/SamDonnellon