Phillies shouldn't rush Roy Halladay

CLEARWATER, Fla. - For 2 full years, the two surest forces in Philadelphia were the gravitational constant and Roy Halladay. Nothing that happened on Sunday afternoon is an indication that has changed.

Halladay showed up to the ballpark feeling ill, insisted on making his start, then realized shortly after his first pitch that the whole thing was going to be an exercise in counterproductivity. So he left the game after a scoreless first inning, 25 pitches to his credit, 13 of them strikes. People get sick. On Sunday, Halladay happened to be one of them (as was Jonathan Papelbon, who was scratched because of illness for the second time this spring).

The pertinent issue is not whatever knee-jerk skepticism the early exit prompted, coming as it did 5 days after Halladay struggled with both his velocity and his command in a rocky outing against the Tigers. The Phillies might not be an open book when it comes to discussing the health of their players, but they are not a team with a long track record of concocting phantom maladies in order to cover up injuries.

The pertinent issue is that Halladay could have left Sunday's start because he wanted to catch the end of the Atlantic 10 championship game and the result would have been the same: one less chance to prepare his soon-to-be 36-year-old body for the rigors of a 6-month season.

And while Charlie Manuel expressed confidence that his onetime workhorse will have enough time to do just that, you can't help but wonder if the Phillies would be best served approaching the final couple of weeks of spring training with an open mind. To borrow a phrase often used by Ruben Amaro Jr. this time of year, Opening Day is just a day.

The goal is to have Halladay productive for the long haul, and it is fair to at least consider that the best way to meet that objective will involve leaving him behind when the team breaks camp at the end of the month.

Now, everybody who has watched Halladay and the Phillies operate over the last 3 years knows that the odds are heavily in favor of the two-time Cy Young winner being on that season-opening charter flight to Atlanta as long as he is physically able to take the mound. But the odds were also heavily in favor of him making his start on Sunday despite showing up to the ballpark with a stomach bug that clearly affected his stamina. And a record St. Patrick's Day crowd of 11,100 saw how that worked out.

Sometimes, the quickest way to take two steps forward is to first take one step back. The Phillies do not need to look too far into the past for a reminder. Right around this time of year in 2009, Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee named Brett Myers their Opening Day starter and penciled in Cole Hamels for the fourth start of the season so that the young lefty would have more time to get his arm into playing shape.

In hindsight, it wasn't enough time, and Hamels wound up battling through a frustrating campaign that might have ended with the Phillies' second straight championship if not for his struggles in the World Series.

Nobody knows if an extra couple of weeks in Florida would have made a difference for Hamels. What we do know is that it is incredibly difficult to play catch-up during the season, and that problems at the start of the season can often snowball as a player attempts to solve them while also competing at his sport's highest level.

If this were a normal spring, Sunday's abbreviated outing would be only a minor nuisance. But Halladay is at a place that is eerily similar to where he was 16 days before the start of last season, which ended with a 4.49 ERA and 156 1/3 innings in 25 starts. Twenty-two days before his first start of the 2012 season, a FoxSports.com report raised concerns about Halladay's velocity and the "bite" on his pitches. He was coming off a rough outing in which he had allowed five runs in 2 2/3 innings against the Twins, and his fastball was topping out at 89 mph. This year, his velocity is hovering in the same range. Halladay admitted 6 days ago that he has a lot of things he needs to work on, that he is still struggling to deploy his most trusted weapon, the cutter. On Sunday, that work did not get done.

Halladay is 16 days out from what would likely be his first scheduled start of the season. Last year at that juncture, he pitched six innings against the Orioles. The Phillies could move Halladay's 2013 debut back to their fifth game of the season, which would allow him to get three more exhibition outings on normal rest: March 22 and 27 and April 1 (in a minor league or simulated game, as that is Opening Day). That might be enough time. But if the Phillies have any inkling that an extra week or 2 away from the pressure and grind of the regular season would better prepare Halladay for a return to success, they should insist on it.