In his first playoff start, Roy Halladay gave his potential Hall of Fame status a massive boost.
"It's no fun out there... It's like trying to hit nothing. He's an ace among aces."
-- Toronto-born Reds first baseman Joey Votto after his team was no-hit Wednesday in Game 1 of the NLDS
His entire professional career, all Roy Halladay wanted was to pitch in the playoffs. Nothing more, nothing less. Boy, he sure made the most of his chance, didn't he?
Using basically two pitches -- fastball and curve -- Halladay never gave the Reds a sniff the whole afternoon into night. The only batter to reach base was Jay Bruce on a two-out walk in the fifth. The closest a Red came to getting a hit was when pitcher Travis Wood hit a sinking liner to right that another former Blue Jay, Jayson Werth, raced in to catch.
Halladay pounded the strike zone the entire game, throwing first-pitch strikes to 25 of the 28 Reds he faced. With an early four-run cushion after two innings, Halladay was in lock-step with catcher Carlos Ruiz, who also caught his May 29 perfect game against the Marlins, and never allowed the Reds to get anything going.
And how's this for a little bit of quirky trivia: Halladay is the first starting pitcher in the history of the post-season to have more hits in a game than he allowed. He was 1-for-3 with an RBI and scored a run while allowing no hits.
So where does this now put Halladay, historically, in the grand scheme of things? The first thing that gets a massive boost is his potential Hall of Fame status when he finally hangs 'em up. At 33, Halladay likely has five more years where he'll be at, or near, the top of his game, barring injury of course. Through the end of this first season with the Phillies he now has 169 regular-season wins. Based upon statistical data from his last seven "healthy" seasons, "Doc" likely has approximately 94 wins left in his arm. That projects him to have 263 wins after the 2015 season when, at 38, he'll be staring retirement squarely in the eye. That win total will be well short of the requisite 300 that gains immediate entry into the Hall.
But there are other things to consider: first and foremost, if he wins the NL Cy Young award this season, he'll be just the fourth in major-league history to win one in each league. Now he becomes the second pitcher, along with Don Larsen, to throw a post-season no-no, and just the fifth pitcher to ever throw two no-hitters in the same calendar season, joining Nolan Ryan, Virgil Trucks, Allie Reynolds and Johnny Vandermeer in that exclusive club. He's also a three-time 20-game winner -- twice in the American League, the tougher of the two leagues to pitch in.
But the biggest reason he should be strongly considered for the Hall is that he is the most dominant pitcher of this era, an era where performance-enhancing drugs were all the rage during the first part of his career. Heck, if Bill Mazeroski, a career .260 hitter, is in the Hall... you get what I'm saying?
The numbers don't lie here folks. Since 2002, when Halladay first started taking a regular turn in the Blue Jays rotation, his numbers stack up against any and all aces in the majors:
WINS: 151 (1st)
WINNING %: .686 (3rd)
SHUTOUTS: 17 (1st)
COMPLETE GAMES: 55 (1st)
ERA: 3.04 (4th)
K/BB RATIO: 4.39 (2nd)
And now, since going to the Phillies and clearly into the bright baseball spotlight, he has thrown a perfect game and a playoff no-hitter. His Blue Jays legacy can never be tarnished but, unfortunately, it will get pushed into the shadows. Once known around the game, especially with the fans, as "the Halladay fella who pitches up north," he is now clearly in the spotlight, something that he always shunned with the Jays.
But that's not the way that things roll now for "Doc." When you go to a baseball-crazed market like Philadelphia in a much-publicized trade, sign a three-year, $60-million extension upon your arrival, pitch a perfect game, win 20 games, and then pitch a no-hitter in your first career post-season start... the spotlight is where he'll live, for now and for the rest of his days in the game.
Having watched his entire career unfold before my eyes with the Blue Jays, I say it couldn't have happened to a better guy. For Blue Jays fans, there should be no bad feelings about how this all played out. His time was over in Toronto after last season when the team went into rebuild mode after eight years of spinning their wheels. All he wanted was a chance to pitch in the playoffs.
The old adage, "careful what you wish for" does not apply here.
