Friday, June 05, 2009

A Great Halladay This Summer

With all the playoff fever of late and the ongoing Championships in both the NBA and NHL baseball has slid a bit under the radar. Once the two leagues crown the winners there will be a clear lull as far as sports goes and that will be baseballs time to shine and take a hold of the sports viewership. After all it is the Great American game, America’s Pass time and may well be one of the best sports out there. With that said, I would like to give the casual viewer something to keep an eye on and give out some credit where credit is most defiantly due to an under appreciated player:

He is probably the best, most durable, most dominant pitcher in baseball today. He is the throwback pitcher like they used to have in the game before specialization and lefty righty match ups became en vogue. He is the Doc.

Roy Halladay could very well be one of the most underrated pitchers in all of baseball. He consistently is either leading or at the top of the list when it comes to complete games on a yearly basis. His innings pitched and pitches thrown are among the league leaders as well. For lack of a better term he is a horse, the stud of the Blue Jays pitching staff. When he goes to the mound every 5th day you know that you are at the very least going to have a chance to win and that he is going to give you a quality start and save a few innings on your bullpen.

I find it a bit of a shame that he has not been given more to work with under JP Riccardi and the Jays organization over his time. Sure being in the East versus the Sox and the Yanks the hope of gaining a championship is next to impossible but it would be nice if he could get a little more of a reward or more recognition at least on a personal level. Sure he has won a Cy Young and is a front runner for one this year after a 9-1 start. He just doesn’t seem to get lumped into the same league with other top name pitchers despite probably being better. Halladay set a personal best of 14 strikeouts this week in a victory over the Angels and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. He is a pro’s pro - he even seemed to be one of the best pitching coaches since he had managed to turn around the often wandering attention and consistency of AJ Burnett

Jays fans know that Roy is Roy. I just hope that other baseball fans can appreciate him just as much.

2 comments:

Tom said...

It's like an NHL player in L.A. There's no respect because people don't watch the Kings play.

If Halladay pitched anywhere in the States, it would be a different thing entirely. But because he's in a Canadian city, he'll never lead off ESPN's SportsCentre.

Fin Santa Claus said...

Love this post!!

Doc is the man. Best pitcher in baseball over the last five years, hands down. If Da Pimp did a little more to protect him in the rotation, things would be ex. But I have no doubt that when Roy's contract is up, he'll enjoy big free agent dollars. He is on pace for between 25 and 30 wins this year already, wow.