Scott Carson

Stats man Scott Carson is now in his 17th season as "third man in the booth" during Blue Jays telecasts. Watch for his columns regularly on Sportsnet.ca.

Roy Halladay is the best starting pitcher Toronto has right now, but where does he stack up all-time in the Blue Jays pantheon?

On any given Sunday, Roy Halladay can dominate a start like few others of his generation. Yesterday wasn't one of them.

But that didn't mean that the Blue Jays weren't able to win for just the second time this month after rolling off 20 of them in May. Despite not having his best stuff, Halladay battled through 7.2 innings under a strength sapping sun and a humidex that was approaching 40 degrees. It was also Doc's 14th win in his last 18 starts at the Rogers Centre.

Five years removed from his Cy Young Award winning season of 2003, Halladay rarely dominates like he did back in the day. Oh, he can still spin a brilliant complete game performance at any time. It's just that, through scouting by the opposition or other extenuating circumstances, he no longer breezes through games and has taken on a bulldog-mentality. In fact, I see a lot more Pat Hentgen in him and a lot less Dave Stieb.

I bring up these names because as I sat watching Halladay's 119th career win as a Blue Jay (good for 3rd on the franchise's all-time list) I asked myself a question. Is Halladay the greatest pitcher ever to wear a Blue Jay uniform? A look at his all-time ranks should kick start the debate:

Now, for the sake of argument, I'm going to place Halladay in a group of five with Dave Stieb, Jimmy Key, Pat Hentgen and Jim Clancy as the top five pitchers in Blue Jays history. I'll not include Roger Clemens despite his back to back Cy Young Awards in his two seasons with the Jays. Nor will I include Jack Morris, their first ever 20-game winner, due to the fact that, like Clemens, he just wasn't around long enough.

As the graphic above shows, Halladay's numbers match up favourably with all members of the group. The fact that he's probably two-thirds through a career that is in its 11th season means that when he's done, 'Doc' will own every significant franchise pitching record. Will he win any more Cy Young Awards? Unlikely, but certainly possible due to his sheer determination and his skills haven't deteriorated that much.

Stieb was the first superstar pitcher in franchise history, arriving in 1979, while the team was still going through its expansion growing pains, and staying though the first World Series year of 1992, with a cameo, career-closing 19 games in 1998. As the graphic shows, Stieb currently sits on top of many Blue Jays' pitching lists. He threw the only no-hitter in team history to go with five one-hitters and was the starting pitcher for the American League in two All-Star games, making seven total appearances in the mid-summer classic. The only blips on his career were that he never won 20 games or a Cy Young Award.

Key was the best left-handed pitcher in club history. His 114 wins rank him fourth on the all-time list and he gave the Jays the perfect compliment for Stieb and then later on Morris, giving Toronto one of the top left-right starting combos in baseball during his days as a Jay.

Hentgen was the quintessential bulldog starter in his 10 seasons as a Jay. Not blessed with the skill set of Stieb, Key or Halladay, Hentgen just took his turn every five days and gave his team a chance to win. No one will forget his gutsy win in Game 3 of the 1993 World Series.

Clancy is on this list for sentimental reasons. 'Diamond Jim', as is former teammates lovingly refer to him as, pitched 200+ innings in six of his 12 seasons with the Jays and his 73 complete games are second only to Stieb's 103. Never blessed with the best stuff, he ate up a lot of innings in the early years of the franchise when the team was a perennial bottom feeder.

So, is Halladay the greatest Jays pitcher of all-time? I'll say not quite. In a sport based on stats, his numbers fall just behind Stieb and just ahead of Key. But with likely a half dozen more years left in his arm, the records will be all his one day and like Sunday's performance showed, he can win even when he doesn't have his best stuff.

Hopefully one day, like Stieb, Key, Clancy and Hentgen, he'll be allowed to show his stuff in the post-season, something that he hasn't come close to in 11 seasons north of the border.