Roy Halladay will attempt a second straight quality start on Friday night when the Philadelphia Phillies host the St. Louis Cardinals in the second of four games at Citizens Bank Park.
A 19-game winner in 2011 who slumped to just 11 wins and a 4.49 earned run average last season, Halladay opened this year with consecutive brief outings while dropping decisions to Atlanta and the New York Mets.
In those starts, he allowed 12 runs on 12 hits in 7 1/3 innings.
Halladay, though, bounced back on Sunday and tossed eight innings of five-hit, one-run ball while defeating Miami, 2-1.
He's 3-2 against the Cardinals in six career starts with a 2.70 ERA.
St. Louis starts lefty Jaime Garcia, who's gotten no-decisions in two straight starts despite pitching beyond the sixth inning and allowing three runs or less.
Garcia was a 6-1 winner over Arizona in his initial start of 2013 on April 2, pitching 5 2/3 innings and allowing a single run on two hits.
He's struck out 15 batters, allowed three runs and 13 hits in 13 2/3 innings in the two subsequent performances, but has come up empty in St. Louis' 13-4 loss to Cincinnati and 4-3 loss to Milwaukee.
Garcia is 2-2 in seven lifetime games against Philadelphia.
On Thursday, Carlos Beltran's opposite-field solo home run off Mike Adams in the eighth inning gave the Cardinals a 4-3 win.
Yadier Molina went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI, while Adam Wainwright (3-1), coming off a four-hit shutout of the Brewers, scattered nine hits and three runs over seven innings to pick up the win.
"He did a good job of establishing his fastball," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "When he can locate his fastball, good things tend to happen."
St. Louis had lost two of three coming in but did just enough to get by a Phillies club that has dropped four in a row after getting swept by the Cincinnati Reds.
Freddy Galvis and Chase Utley each had two hits and knocked in a run for Philadelphia, which lost despite recording 13 hits. Adams (0-1) took the loss behind Cole Hamels, who struck out eight and allowed five hits and three runs in seven frames.
"We had baserunners all night. Of course at the end, we couldn't score the big run. We had some good chances, just couldn't cash in on them. That's the best we hit in a while," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.
The Phillies won the 2012 season series, five games to two. St. Louis won six of nine games between the teams in 2011.
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