Roy Halladay pitched a five-hit shutout for the Philadelphia Phillies tonight and for the Atlanta Braves it almost wasn’t a fair game.

Halladay was on all night long, there was no question about that. He was really only challenged, according to the ESPN announcers, in one inning when the Braves had the bases loaded.

What impressed me even more was how the Phillies played around him in their 2-0 win.

I didn’t watch the whole game. But in the couple innings I did, second baseman Chase Utley made a fantastic diving stop of a hard ground ball. Had it squirted into centerfield the Braves would have scored at least two runs.

In the ninth inning, a slimmed down Ryan Howard dove to his right and snared another shot that appeared to be a base hit. He then flung the ball to Halladay covering first for yet another gem.

Earlier in the game Troy Glaus hit a deep fly to center that Shane Victorino timed, leaped for and caught with his glove over the fence, saving Halladay yet again.

The Phillies, the closest thing Major League Baseball has to a dynasty at the moment, and Halladay, probably the league’s best pitcher, appear to be made for each other at the moment. The pitcher is clearly motivated to take his game up another notch to make his first run into the playoffs.

And Philadelphia isn’t going to have to score many runs for him to win a heckuva lot of games if the team keeps playing defense for him like they did tonight.

So far he’s 4-0 with ERA and WHIP both below 0.90. He won’t be able to keep that up, but expect 22 or 23 wins for Halladay and something in the high 90s if not more for the Phightin’ Phills. It’s early and a lot could change, but I think that’s the best team I’ve seen so far in 2010.