Roy Halladay: The True Cy Young Award Candidate

The 2010 baseball season has clearly been the year of the pitcher.

Six no-hitters, three perfect games (I’m including Armando Galarraga’s), fifteen no hit bids broken up in the seventh, and four no hit bids broken up within the 8th inning or later. One would be so cruel not to call it the year of the pitcher.

September has strolled upon us and teams are making their pitch for a playoff spot, a few prestigious players are making a run for the Triple Crown, and the Cy Young award talk begins.

The deserving winner is definitely Roy Halladay.

Pitchers such as Chris Carpenter, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, and Adam Wainwright all make good cases, but not as good as Roy Halladay.

Taking a quick look at statistics, Halladay has posted a 17-10 record, 2.33 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and leads the majors in strikeouts with 196, innings pitched with 221, and complete games with 8. Halladay ranks in the top 3 in every statistic besides ERA where he ranks fourth, just .08 points behind first place, Matt Latos.

Voters are alarmed by his 10 losses, however not all are deserved.

In six of those ten losses, Roy Halladay has given up three runs or less (three times giving up three, twice giving up two, and once giving up one).

Had those quality starts been rewarded with wins, Halladay’s record would transform from 17-10 to a beautiful Cy Young worthy 23-4. Given the poor run support, he has done incredible by racking up 17 wins. 

The Phillies have a powerhouse lineup of Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, and Carlos Ruiz.  You expect that squad to score at least four runs every night.  For some reason, when Roy is on the mound, they don’t like to do it.

I can’t see anyone else getting more than 13 wins with this type of support.

Roy Halladay won six games in which he was given no more than 3 runs. That shows that in those six outings, the Phillies were relying on Doc to pull them through.

Throughout the 2010 season, Roy Halladay has shown he can go deep into games. Out of 29 starts this season, just four of them have lasted less than 7 innings and has thrown a perfect game—the hardest accomplishment for a pitcher. A workhorse, I tell you!

Leading the majors in innings pitched and putting up 8 complete games is a Cy Young to me.  Someone who can go deep into games and dominate opposing batters with his nasty stuff and puts them away with his strikeouts. This season his opponents are hitting just .245 against him.

The wins haven’t fallen Roy Halladay’s way this year.

Hopefully the writers can get this one right, and look beyond the wins and losses, because sometimes the record isn’t always what it shows.

 

 

 

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