I paid $8.50 to watch Roy Halladay do what he did last night. I gave so little, and got so much. It was akin to robbery. I now know how Rogers Communications feels when doing business with me.
It was an epic performance from Doc. I've been to five of his six starts, and last night's might have been the best yet; even better than when he laid the smack down on A.J. Burnett and the Yankees.
What's really left to be said about Halladay? As TD points out over at The 500 Level, since 2002, when Halladay became a premier pitcher in baseball, through twelve starts he's arguably never been as dominant as he's been in 2009. His 82 strikeouts, thanks to a career-high 14 last night, are astounding. The man is aging tremendously.
A couple of folks put it most aptly:
Baseball Facts - "Roy Halladay can make Tim McCarver shutup."
Ghostrunner on First - "Roy Halladay is not of this earth."
It's one thing to watch Halladay shut down a lineup with a masterful two-hit, 95-pitch performance. It's another to watch him allow four earned runs in a troublesome seventh inning, and end up throwing a 133-pitch complete game victory.
At the top of both the 8th and 9th innings, I was on the edge of my seat, hoping to see Halladay emerge from the dugout. Each time, he did. No bullpen was going to blow the lead. Thank you, Cito Gaston.
And make no mistake, The Cito knows: pitch counts mean something only to mere mortals; not Harry Leroy Halladay III.
In the final two innings, Halladay struck out five Anaheim Angels. The side, in the 9th, to end the game.
If you don't know, now you know: Doc's the best pitcher in baseball.
UPDATE: Check out Pitch F/X goodness from Doc's start over at The Mockingbird. Halladay's 130th pitch of the evening hit 94.7 mph on the radar gun ...
UPDATE #3: Doc's start, and finish, last night, did not qualify as a "quality start." Needless to say, the quality start statistic is now dead to me. I will never reference it again.
8 comments:
Halladay is among the best pitchers of the decade, no doubt about that. He just keeps fighting and scratching and clawing and has the will of a lion. Last night was incredibly impressive. Kudos to Gaston for leaving him in there.
Halladay made the Angels look like my school softball team at the plate.
Lights out, fucking brilliant. The Doc mauled the Angels.
It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
After those four runs, I was certain that Cito was going to hand it over the bullpen the next inning. But then Halladay came back and was EVEN BETTER! How is that possible? Only with Roy Halladay.
I had a moment of silence for the Angels dignity last night.
Then I sat in quiet reflection upon the greatness of Roy Halladay.
It's good you've shed "quality start" from your lexicon. Good stats are predictive and/or context free for accurate comparisons.
Bad stats are arbitrary and tell you 1/5 of the information they're trying to convey.
Quality starts is the Josh Towers of stats
@ William: Doc's the best Blue Jays pitcher I've ever had the pleasure to watch. And Citocity (as coined by Ghostrunner) is a fine place to live.
@ Stan: That 7th inning only pissed Doc off more. As if to say, "these mother fucking chumps scored four runs off me!?!?"
@ SL: Should be interesting to see how the Angels respond to Casey Janssen tonight. They might be so happy to not see Roy Halladay, the go wild.
@ Ian: You're right. Any other pitcher would have been pulled, and rightfully so. It was something else to see Doc come out for the 9th. Everyone was up on their feet. Was good times.
@ The Ack: You're a good man, thinking about those poor Angels. And sitting in quiet reflection upon the greatness of Roy Halladay is something we all need to do a little bit more. What a man.
@ Drew: The education of eyebleaf continues.
Good call on the quality start stat.
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