All about discipline

Roy Halladay came into tonight having allowed three home runs all season.

He gave up three tonight, to Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira. Though much of the talk coming into the game was about Halladay's past success against the Yankees, it shouldn't have come as a surprise the Yankees roughed him up.

Tonight was the ninth time Halladay has given up three homers in a game, and the Yankees have done it three times in the last two seasons.

Halladay (8-5), who was 18-6 with a 2.84 ERA against the Yankees coming in, allowed six runs and eight hits in six innings as his ERA climbed to 2.36 from 1.96.

"We have good hitters," hitting coach Kevin Long said. "He's a good pitcher but you look up and down our lineup we're certainly capable of doing that against him. Do you expect it going in? No, but it doesn't surprise me." 

Long said Halladay “wasn’t as sharp and as crisp” as he’s seen, but also credited the Yankees’ approach and ability to avoid “chases." 

Long said the Yankees had just four chases -- pitches out of the strike zone -- last night when normally against Halladay they might have 12-20.

“We really were disciplined,” Long said. “We really swung at strikes and we didn’t miss a whole lot when he made pitches in the middle of the plate.”

Swisher’s two-run homer in the third made it 5-0.

“We didn’t swing at balls, we didn’t swing at stuff in the dirt, we didn’t swing at balls off the plate,” Swisher said. “We got him in the middle of the plate.”

Of the three games, tonight was the matchup most obviously favoring the Phillies, though it can be foolhardy to make assumptions. Still, the Yankees have to like their chances the next two games, starting tomorrow night as it will be A.J. Burnett (6-4, 3.86) taking on Jamie Moyer (6-6, 5.03).