Roy Halladay vs. Josh Johnson Part Two

As a result of last nights rain-out, tonight's series finale vs the Florida Marlins will feature a top-notch pitching matchup between two of the best in baseball today.

The Philadelphia Phillies (31-26) are looking to keep the bats hot as they are coming off their most prolific scoring outburst in about a month. Philadelphia scored 10 runs in Game 1 of this series back on Tuesday night, although runs might be at a premium tonight.

Roy Halladay will return to the mound to face the Marlins for the first time since his perfect game on May 29th in down in Miami. The Phillies were in the midst of a prolonged scoring drought, scoring only one unearned run that night to win 1-0.

Halladay is 8-3 on the season with a stellar ERA of just over two at 2.03. Halladay is coming off a win against the San Diego Padres on Friday night, a game where he went eight innings while only giving up two earned runs.

And on the other side is Florida's ace, 26-year-old Josh Johnson. On the season, Johnson is living up to the hype as well. He's 6-2 on the season with an ERA of 2.10 and has struck out 43 batters in his last 46 innings.

Hitters are hitting a lowly .213 off of Johnson and in his last month of work, Johnson has compiled an ERA of 1.37.

The Phillies do hit Johnson well however, with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jayson Werth all hitting over .300 in their careers off the right hander.

Speaking of Jayson Werth, he will be returning to the lineup tonight after being given the night off on Tuesday. Werth and manager Charlie Manuel had a disagreement earlier this week about the origins of Werth's troubles at the plate. Jayson thought it was mental and Charlie thought it was free-agency related. Werth wasn't pleased with the statement and it sent Charlie into a full-blown backstroke yesterday.

But the air has been cleared between the starting right-fielder and the skipper as Werth will return to the starting lineup tonight still struggling. Werth is three for his last 38 with 17 strikeouts, two of them were game-enders on back-to-back nights.

It will be an interesting match-up tonight at the Bank as the Phils and Marlins go at it with the first pitch set for 7:05 pm, and fortunately for all of us attending tonight there is not a drop of rain in the forecast.