Ryan Howard

At least now they know. The uncertainty surrounding Roy Halladay was, metaphorically speaking, like a bone spur fraying the fabric of the Phillies' 2013 season. It is the kind of uncertainty that had a devastating impact on the two previous Phillies seasons. Two years ago, it was Chase Utley's mysterious spring-training disappearance. Last year, it was Utley and Halladay and Ryan Howard. It isn't easy for a team when a key player is unavailable because of injury. It is much harder when the missing player's status is shrouded in mystery.

PHOENIX - A day after his 36th birthday, Roy Halladay will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder. The Phillies announced the news before last night's game against the Diamondbacks. Halladay had been mulling his options but decided to have the procedure done in Los Angeles on Wednesday by Neal ElAttrache, the doctor who examined him earlier this week. "I liked him, I thought he was spot-on," Halladay said on Wednesday in San Francisco, when he announced that he would need surgery.

SAN FRANCISCO — In this ballpark by the bay about two years ago, Mick Billmeyer stopped Kyle Kendrick after a bullpen session. Kendrick was being shuttled between the bullpen and the rotation, and Billmeyer, then the bullpen coach, worried about his confidence. "Some guys," he told Kendrick, "are just late bloomers. " Kendrick remembered the message, and it is one repeated over and over as the 28-year-old Phillies pitcher achieves excellence. A 6-2 win over the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night served as the latest validation for Kendrick.

SAN FRANCISCO - If it wasn't for Hunter Pence, Cliff Lee may have very well shut out the San Francisco Giants on Monday night. In his first game against his former team, Pence tried to be a one-man wrecking ball in the Giants' lineup. He homered in his first at-bat and attempted to start a rally with an eighth-inning, leadoff double in his last at-bat. He went 3-for-3 and scored the only two runs San Francisco scored in a 6-2 defeat to the Phillies. "He looked good," manager Charlie Manuel said yesterday afternoon at AT&T Park.

SAN FRANCISCO - Ben Revere reached base three times Sunday, just the second time that happened in 27 games, and that earned him a spot on the bench Monday night. The Phillies were ranked 14th in the National League with a .669 OPS before Monday's game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park. Revere is far from the sole culprit, but when the lineup is struggling, the manager will typically seek the weakest link and remove him. That, right now, is Revere. "I didn't say Ben couldn't hit," Charlie Manuel said.

WE FIGURE Phillies fans probably need a bit of good news after the weekend's disappointing losses to the Marlins. To that end, we take you back to Friday night when Ryan Howard hit a home run at the request of A.J. Moncman, a 7-year-old who is blind. It was Teacher Appreciation Night and A.J. was at the game because his teacher, Bethann Molinari - who he had nominated - was being honored in a pregame ceremony. A.J. attends Hopewell Elementary School in Upper Saucon Township and Molinari taught him how to read and write in Braille.

Somebody has to lose to the Miami Marlins. Even if you play 162 games with a single-A lineup in the big leagues, you're bound to win a few of them. The Marlins did not test that exact theory Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park, but they did beat the Phillies, 2-0, behind a lineup that is being paid just over $6 million this season. Lefthander Cole Hamels, who will be paid $19.5 million, took the loss, slipping to 1-4 in seven starts. The man who accounted for the Marlins' winning run with his first big-league home run, leading off the second inning, was Marcell Ozuna, a 22-year-old rightfielder who had 47 plate appearances above the single-A level in his career before joining the Marlins Monday.

Baseball rewards panic the same way a pit bull rewards sudden movement. There's no future in simply turning and running from a bad start from a baseball team, or in trying to repair a six-month season with a few weeks of glue and duct tape. The Phillies were constructed for 2013 on the precarious hope that their aging veteran starters would pitch well and that their aging everyday players would regain their productivity. Around that central theme, the front office sprinkled journeymen and prospects who might be good enough if everything else went right.

Jonathan Pettibone went deeper in his third start. His teammates simply went deep. Solo home runs by Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Domonic Brown aided the pitching of Pettibone in Friday's 4-1 win over the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park. Pettibone, who pitched a total of 101/3 innings in his first two starts, lasted 61/3 innings in winning his second game in a row, the same as his team. He departed with one out and a runner on first in the seventh, having thrown 94 pitches.

After two difficult nights against the free-swinging Cleveland Indians, the Phillies had a welcome return home, facing an offensively challenged Miami Marlins team. On the heels of two losses by a combined 20-2 score at Cleveland, the Phillies defeated the Marlins, 7-2, in the first game of a four-game series Thursday before 36,978 at Citizens Bank Park. The Marlins entered the action having scored the fewest runs in the majors, 79 in 28 games. "In Cleveland they got after us, got the lead, and beat us," manager Charlie Manuel said.