Mets Tee Off on Roy Halladay, Crush Phillies

Whenever the Mets would face Roy Halladay and the Phillies, you could pretty much mark it down as a loss. However, the Roy Halladay of 2013 is different from years past. He is baseball’s biggest mystery, and the Mets took advantage of his loss of velocity to beat the Phils Monday night.

After looking good in the first, Halladay allowed a double to Marlon Byrd with one out in the second. He hit Lucas Duda with a pitch and then John Buck hit a long drive into the seats in right field to give the Mets a 3-0 lead. Buck now has three home runs and 12 RBIs.

In the third Halladay walked Daniel Murphy and Byrd, and Duda came through with an RBI single to make it 4-0.

Matt Harvey allowed his first run of the season in the fourth, courtesy of a couple of hits and a Ryan Howard sacrifice fly that made it 4-1.

But the Mets got the run right back in the top of the fifth, and then some. Murphy led off with a double, advanced to third on a wild pitch and came around to score on a David Wright single to make it 5-1. After Ike Davis singled to put runners on first and third, Halladay was removed from the game. Reliever Chad Durbin walked Duda to load the bases and with two outs Ruben Tejada singled to plate Wright and Davis to extend the Mets lead to 7-1. Those runs were charged to Halladay.

So Roy Halladay went four innings, allowing seven runs on six hits and three walks. He labored through 99 pitches in his brief outing. Even though he has a history as a Mets killer — before this game he was 9-2 in 12 career starts against the Mets — it is sad to see such a dominant pitcher like Roy Halladay struggling like this.

Meantime the Mets own dominant starter was cruising. Matt Harvey lasted seven innings and 110 pitches, allowing just the one run on three hits. He struck out nine Phillies and walked two as he earned his second win of the season.

Mets win 7-2.