Rock Solid Recap: Halladay Serves As Olivo's Slumpbuster

Rockies 4, Phillies 3

As I said earlier... to call this a big win would an understatement.

The Rockies didn't beat Roy Halladay, but they knocked him around quite a bit. Great swings up and down the lineup. High pitch counts. Bascially they made him work harder for his money than any other Halladay opponent this season. This approach needs to carry over to every pitcher, not just the elite ones.

Aaron Cook pitched a fantastic six innings. Seriously. I'm not a fan of the quality start stat, because I think it needs to be adjusted for ballpark and opponent, but this qualifies as a quality start on any scale. He kept the Rockies in the game and held down a terrific offense. I'm very pleased with Cook.

Brad Hawpe delivered the game changing blow. His triple over Jayson Werth's not only tied the game, it lit a fire under the team that we don't see enough. I give Eric Young Jr. credit for that as well. He was pumped to score the tying run.

CarGo and Seth Smith had great ABs early in the game. Their hits and quality ABs only led to one run early, but it also helped wear Halladay down later.

All that said...

Winning Player: Miguel Olivo 5-for-5, Walk-off HR.

Using Roy Halladay as a slumpbuster? Who knew?

He was in a serious, serious funk heading in to this one. But I'd say he's out of that now.

I wonder if the day off did him some good. I also wonder if the Grand Slam Chris Iannetta hit at Triple A may have woke him up, too. Whatever the case, today belonged to Miguel. And we can't thank him enough for coming through.

Tarp is on the field as we speak. Game 2 might be in a little bit of question at this time, especially after we saw a couple injuries in Game 1. Not sure either team would be in the mood to play in that stuff.