Phillies look to Halladay to salvage series at Wrigley

photo:WallyG from flickr

    If you’ve ever been to Wrigley Field, you’ll appreciate the comments that it’s one of the best places you’ll ever see a baseball game. For one reason, “it’s a shrine of baseball.” There aren’t too many shrines left in baseball, in this day and age when nearly every thing is disposable like yesterday’s old newspapers. Even the ‘newspaper’ itself is being threatened with extinction, but if you ever get the chance, I would make a special trip to go out of your way to see some games at Wrigley.

   This evening on Sunday Night Baseball, the 2010 Phillies look to Roy Halladay to salvage this series with the Cubs and then move onto the next stop on their roadtrip, St. Louis.

   Placido Polanco is back on the field, and his key hit already helped to deliver a much needed win for the Phillies on Saturday. Tonight, they need another win to break even with the Cubs and continue on with the schedule with more wins.

   Run support has been a big problem for both Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels this year, here’s a look at Roy’s 19 starts so far this season and his run support, his record is 10-7 despite the low run support:

Split	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA
0-2 Runs Scored	8	246	13	53	10	0	3	3	1	4	62	15.50	.215
3-5 Runs Scored	6	173	23	54	9	3	7	0	2	8	34	4.25	.312
6+ Runs Scored	5	138	5	30	7	0	1	3	0	7	32	4.57	.217

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/18/2010.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference for the chart.


Let's find out more about 'The Friendly Confines' which is what Wrigley Field has been called. Here's a excerpt from wikipedia.com and the whole article on Wrigley can be found here.

Wrigley Field (pronounced /ˈrɪɡli/) is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales. It was called Cubs Park between 1920 and 1926 before being renamed for then Cubs team owner and chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley Jr.. Between 1921 and 1970 it was also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. In addition, it hosted the second annual National Hockey League Winter Classic on January 1, 2009.


Located in the residential neighborhood of Lakeview, Wrigley Field sits on an irregular block bounded by Clark (west) and Addison (south) Streets and Waveland (north) and Sheffield (east) Avenues. The area surrounding the ballpark contains bars, restaurants and other establishments and is typically referred to as Wrigleyville. The ballpark's mailing address is 1060 W. Addison Street.


Wrigley Field is nicknamed The Friendly Confines, a phrase popularized by "Mr. Cub", Hall of Famer Ernie Banks. The current capacity is 41,160, making Wrigley Field the 10th-smallest actively used ballpark. It is the oldest National League ballpark and the second oldest active major league ballpark (after Fenway Park on April 20, 1912), and the only remaining Federal League park. Wrigley is known for its ivy covered brick outfield wall, the unusual wind patterns off Lake Michigan, the iconic red marquee over the main entrance, and the hand turned scoreboard.