Roy Halladay Wednesday reacted to the news about his right shoulder the only way a pitcher who isn't ready to close the book on his career should react to such news: With optimism.

Halladay went to Los Angeles orthopedist Neal ElAttrache, who from the background I've seen about him is sort of the Pat Croce of surgeons -- very optimistic, very "yeah, you can do it!" when it comes to timetables. What Halladay took from that meeting was that with a little arthroscopic blasting of a bone spur, a little cleaning up a itty bitty labrum tear and ... BOOM! He's back before the 2013 season is over, feelin' like it's 2010 all over again!

Personally, I like realists for doctors. Because that sounds ... I won't say delusional, but I'll put the word delusional in this sentence so that you can imagine something just barely below delusional.

Even if by some miracle Roy Halladay's surgery and rehab go so well that he is, indeed, pitching in minor-league games come August, there are only two ways the Phillies should even consider pitching him in the majors again this season: 1) They are out of the playoff hunt come September, or 2) they have wrapped up a playoff spot in September.

There is no way anyone with respect for the game and the entire point of playing the game -- winning, that's the point, to win -- can offer Halladay anything more than that in 2013. Yes, he has been an elite pitcher with Cy Youngs and a likely trip to Cooperstown in his future. But as it pertains to winning -- again, the point of playing, the thing I'd hope Roy Halladay loves more than anything about the game -- there is no rationale that allows you to assume he can be a part of that this season.

The Phillies already have squandered time and success on this. Roy Halladay went out there against an absolute joke of a team in the Marlins knowing he was hurt and basically gave one of the worst teams in history a blowout win, gift wrapped. Forget the fact that the organization stupidly and needlessly insisted on letting Halladay open the season on his regular day when he was obviously behind and struggling massively in spring training -- at least that was their choice. Sunday, however, was Halladay's choice. He chose to go out there hurt and get bombed by a Miami squad that left Philly to play three games against San Diego and scored all of one (1) run in those three games.

Yes, we can rationalize that Halladay was a competitor for going out there at all. Except that the Phillies went through this last year. They hid the fact (lied, really they lied) that he was having back problems, which they said led to his shoulder soreness. Then they gave him great latitude in going out there in the second game of the season to get bombed by a Braves team that has been just abusing him brutally the last two seasons. So there was a history of the Phillies letting Roy be that competitor and having it blow up in their faces.

Halladay owed it to them not to play the macho card again. He did, and if the Phillies somehow end this season a game short of a playoff spot -- and let's not act like it's folly, because teams fall a game short all the time -- that Sunday start will stand out like an ugly welt.

If Halladay plans on resurrecting his career off this surgery, that is for 2014 and beyond. Sure, the Phillies can do him a solid and let him show his wares in September -- if the games don't matter to their fate. Otherwise, Roy can get an incentive-laden deal from either the Phils or another squad for next season and see if he can buck the odds and become a 36-year-old pitcher who can be effective after shoulder surgery.

They don't owe him anything, they've already paid enough of a price.

Sometimes it's useful to sleep on an event before you really try to figure it out. So, after witnessing Roy Halladay's opening start of the 2013 season, then getting a chance to watch a video replay of it while downing a few pints of Sam Adams' spring seasonal draft (very tasty) and playing Japandroids on a jukebox in the Black Horse (which has an great sound system, BTW), here are the things that come to mind:
1) Chase Utley was right. In Halladay's first interview in Clearwater, he mentioned that Utley had told him it might do him good "to hit a few guys." It was meant as a joke ... sort of. The truth is, I didn't see one Atlanta hitter have to spin out of the box, flinch, or even tilt backward Wednesday night. Not one.
I don't care how hard you throw or how good your stuff is, unless you are a knuckleballer, you HAVE to back hitters off. Halladay did throw inside, but he was throwing to the inside corner. He needs to, on occasion, throw to the inside of a hitter's rectum -- especially with this Braves' lineup, which is unashamedly aggressive and has the muscle to be that way.
2) The guy really has been unlucky. Look, I'm not going to get too technical here, because I'm trying to write for everyone. However, there is a SABR stat called BABIP that figures out the ratio of balls put in play that go for hits. For his career, Halladay's has been .295, and that's pretty standard. About 30 percent of balls in the field of play go for hits.
Against the Braves, Halladay endured an .800 BABIP -- four of the five balls in play went for hits. It's a crazy-small sampling because HE STRUCK OUT NINE GUYS, but it is worth mentioning that in his last two spring starts, Halladay had a similarly insane amount of balls in play that fell for hits. (Like I said, I'm writing a blog, not a textbook. But if my memory serves me right the opposing BABIP in those two starts was around .700.)
Here's the point: Halladay might not be the same, but he is not THIS bad. If you overhand tossed balls to big-league hitters they wouldn't hit more than .500 on balls in play. And his strikeouts do show that he has pitches that guys can swing through. But what he needs them to do is start hitting them weakly into play. He broke Freddie Freeman's bat on his single in the first inning, so again ... kind of unlucky.
3) He has to control his frustration better. After the game, Roy kind of threw Erik Kratz under the bus when discussing a pitch he wanted to throw to Justin Upton. He said he wanted to go up with it, while Kratz gave him a low target. Upton went down and crushed it in what really was an impressive display of power and plate coverage.
Meanwhile, in the same postgame interview Halladay spoke of the need to get the ball down and get groundballs. In fact, he said that after I asked him about the bad luck dealio in No. 2 above. Halladay needs to realize Kratz is trying to stress a low target because he keeps getting his cutters up, and they are getting hit for line drives and bombs. So, if Roy Halladay wanted to go up on Upton there and stop him from leaning over the plate to hit balls below the knees on the outside corner 450 feet, then I'm pretty sure Halladay has the means to say "screw the target, I'm going to give this guy a shave."
The shots of Halladay in the dugout after he was removed were kind of wild. He looked like he was waiting for the sheets to his bunk to get changed at Supermax. I am a HUGE fan of anger -- huge -- but the intensity can be crippling to a baseball player when he's struggling (I know this, ask anyone who ever had to duck my bat after a strikeout).
Roy needs to cool off. Yes, it rained and the mound got gummy. Yes, he can't catch a break. Yes, Chooch is your preferred catcher. Yes, slick balls, for whatever that's worth. But until you can control the weather, control gravity, control Carlos Ruiz's crazed obsession with Ritalin, and control who is rubbing what on your balls ... these are things that must be allowed to roll off one's back.
Roy needs some Zen. What's Phil Jackson up to? Someone give Roy his number. And let's see if his start against the Mets Monday brings a little more balance to the guy. It would make it easier to figure out how much, exactly, he has left in the tank.

The Phillies played a waiting game, but when the time came where they could claim Indians outfielder Ezequiel Carrera off waivers, they jumped at the chance. They acquired the speedy 26-year-old Tuesday and designated Rule 5 OF Ender Inciarte for assignment, which begins a process that likely will return the 22-year-old to the Diamondbacks.
A little Koala Paw Pat here since I mentioned Carrera a couple of weeks ago as a guy the Phils had to consider.
Carrera essentially is a more polished version of Inciarte -- strong and versatile defensively, nothing special (but more advanced) with the bat from the left side, and a very good baserunner (Carrera had 11 SBs this spring, 8 SBs in 9 attempts with Cleveland in limited duty last season).
Carrera hit .272 with 11 extra-base hits in 147 ABs for the Indians last season, but got caught in a squeeze when the Tribe got aggressive this winter. He hit .279 in spring training and .286 in the Venezuelan Winter League.
This creates more of a threat to either John Mayberry Jr. or Laynce Nix, as someone has to go from the outfield when Delmon Young is ready for duty. Young played right field for the first time Tuesday in an extended spring game, as he continues to progress from offseason ankle surgery. While it would seem Nix is more at risk (since the Phils are crowded with left-handed bats in the everyday lineup), Mayberry could be a big April in Triple-A by Darin Ruf away from being expendable if his lackluster Grapefruit League effort spills into April.

The Phillies were very good at being very vague about when, exactly, outfielder Delmon Young would take part in game action after having offseason microfracture surgery on his ankle.
Friday morning, Young was quietly sent to Dunedin, where he took at-bats in a minor-league game against the Blue Jays. It so happened R.A. Dickey started for Toronto's minor-league team. And it just so happened Young hit an opposite-field homer off Dickey in his second plate appearance.
Comments from Young on his secretive debut coming soon...

So, this was to be the Big Answer day about Roy Halladay. Is his shoulder dead, or was he the victim of a little tiredness in his disastrous start against Detroit last week?

You were supposed to find out on St. Paddy's Day. However, after one scoreless inning, Halladay left Sunday's game against the Orioles.

The official word was a stomach bug. Jonathan Papelbon was a late scratch Sunday because of illness. But whether Halladay left because of illness or whatever, the Phillies are two weeks from the start of the regular season and Halladay doesn't seem close to ready to compete on the mound. His velocity is down -- scouts insist he's pitching like a guy with a dead shoulder -- and his fastball has been up in the zone as he struggles to hop it up there in the upper-80 mph range.

This is not good. Even if he is sick, he needed to go out and have a productive outing. He's down to two more spring starts. To think he'll get to 100 pitches next time out is silly. So at best, he's behind. At worst, he's a shell of the guy you used to know.

Yes, you can panic.

Yikes. Roy Halladay had a rough outing his last time on the hill, and thought he was dealing with a little dead-arm. Well, this must be a deader-arm period, because the Tigers Tuesday rocked him for seven runs. He also walked four batters and hit another. The lunacy was capped by Ramon Santiago -- who batted .206 last season with 2 HRs in 228 ABs -- hitting a grand slam off Halladay. His velocity didn't get out of the upper-80 mph range on his fastball.

Halladay came into camp admitting that a back problem last season was behind his struggles, which included lower velocity, a lack of command and a D.L. stint with a sore shoulder. This will be updated when Roy speaks postgame.

Unless you were under a rock the last few days, you know that Canada and Mexico threw down like hockey goons during their World Baseball Classic game. Phillies reliever Phillippe Aumont, a member of Team Canada, might have been the size of Andre The Giant in that Battle Royale, but he said it's "not his thing to start shaking up people." (Of course, as GIF guru Dan McQuade shows via Zoo With Roy's bolg, it is TOTALLY Phillies minor-league outfielder Tyson Gillies' jawn.)
But Aumont is Canadian, and thus, as he put it, a "failed hockey player." So when asked which former NHL player he would have liked in uniform for the brawl with Mexico, his response was:

"D'oh, Georges Laraque. Either Georges or Darcy Hordichuk."

Apparently those are good choices, judging by their awesome YouTube fight montages. Why don't you watch them and decide this important decision for Aumont?