Having clinched the National League's best record, the Phillies were the top seed entering the playoffs; since the wild card winner cannot face a team from their own division in the Division Series, Philadelphia played the third-seeded Cincinnati Reds in the first round of the postseason. In the first game, Roy Halladay threw the second no-hitter of his career, his second of the season, and the first in National League postseason history, blanking the Reds, 4–0, in his first career playoff start. He became the second pitcher to throw a no-hitter in the postseason (Don Larsen, 1956) and the first pitcher to throw two no-hitters in a single season since Nolan Ryan in 1973. In the second game, the Reds' Brandon Phillips had three hits, including a double and a home run against Philadelphia starting pitcher Roy Oswalt, but also committed two of Cincinnati's four errors. The errors allowed the Phillies to score five unearned runs to take a 7–4 victory over the Reds and a 2–0 lead in the series. Displaying the form he showed in 2008 when he won the League Championship Series and World Series Most Valuable Player Awards, Cole Hamels pitched a complete-game shutout in the third game of the series to clinch the Phillies' spot in the National League Championship Series. Philadelphia's pitchers set a Division Series record, allowing only 11 hits in 3 games, better than the 1998 New York Yankees' 13 allowed to the Texas Rangers.