TAMPA, Fla. – Last spring, the Phillies insisted that Roy Halladay was completely healthy.

Of course, that wasn’t true. After coming off the disabled list in July, Halladay admitted to feeling shoulder stiffness in spring training. Last month, he admitted he had lower-back issues during spring training 2012.

Halladay’s health was a question last spring because he suffered a noticeable drop in velocity.

On Tuesday, Halladay’s velocity was down – he topped out at 87 mph according to one scout – and the righthander was pounded for seven runs while allowing six hits, including two home runs, four walks and a hit batsmen in 2 2/3 innings against Detroit.

The performance led to more questions about Halladay’s health.

The pitcher says he’s fine.

Pitching coach Rich Dubee says Halladay is fine.

But they said the same thing last spring and it wasn’t true.

So it’s only natural that any appraisal of Halladay’s health would be met with some skepticism this spring.

“Roy had issues last year,” Dubee said. “He had issues. He can’t make it public. Why should he? You guys don’t need to know everything, first of all. This guy didn’t want anybody to know he was banged up last year.”

Dubee said he knew about Halladay’s health issues last spring, but agreed that they should be kept private.

“I’m not going to come out and say the guy can’t do this or can’t do that. Why would I?” Dubee said. “This year, going off what he’s been telling me, talking to him, seeing him, yes, physically he is fine.

“He is not having any physical problems this year – any. Arm. Back. Legs. Nothing.”

Dubee was asked the natural question: Why should people believe that this year?

“You can believe what you want,” he said. “I’m telling you what I knew last year and what I know this year. He felt obligated to take the ball last year. This is a special guy, you know. And he tried to pitch through some stuff last year. Right now at this point this year he feels fantastic physically. He doesn’t even feel like he pitched yesterday. He threw 70 pitches. He felt like he could have thrown another 100. He’s just not there with his delivery and location.

“He came out saying he’s fine. He said on the mound he’s fine. He feels good today. He feels like he didn’t even pitch physically. That’s good.”

Halladay said he felt lethargic during Tuesday’s start. He blamed that on extra throwing he’d done between starts. He threw an extra bullpen session between starts because the Phillies had an off day in the schedule and he wanted to work on his delivery and try to polish up his cutter, which has been inconsistent.

Halladay will throw a bullpen session on Thursday and is scheduled to start against Baltimore in Clearwater on Sunday. It’s not out of the question his start gets moved to a minor-league game, however. Several pitchers, including Cole Hamels and Kyle Kendrick, are making their next starts in minor-league games so Dubee can get his relievers some innings in big-league games.

“Right now he’s in the big-league game Sunday,” Dubee said. “We’ll talk more” Thursday.

Dubee spoke briefly with Halladay on Wednesday. Halladay worked out in Clearwater and did not accompany the team to Tampa for the night game against the Yankees. That is standard practice for a starting pitcher who is not scheduled to pitch.

“I know what he’s missing,” Dubee said. “He’s missing his cutter. The cutter is not there. The cutter was there at the beginning of the game yesterday to the far side. And when he tried to throw it backdoor he changes his delivery. He changes his arm slot. He changes his delivery. So all of a sudden that leads into the other side, too.

“First of all, he’s not there rep-wise to be able to make that adjustment quick enough. Second, right now the backdoor cutter is probably too much because he’s not locked in delivery-wise.

“You can throw any red flag you want up there. Physically, he’s fine.”