Phillies starting pitcher Roy Halladay is no stranger to greatness on the mound during his career.
Recently, Halladay, or “Doc” (taken from the western gunslinger Doc Holliday) received his second Cy Young award for his utter dominance on the mound during the ’10 season.
However, to describe his efforts this past season as utter dominance is a large understatement when you take a look at some of his actual numbers that he put up throughout the course of the year.
Halladay won an NL leading 21 games and had an anemic ERA of 2.44, which was the second-lowest total of his stellar 13-year career.
The stat that sticks out the most about “Doc” from not only in the ’10 season, but also throughout his time in the majors, is his abnormally high number of complete games and shutouts that he manages to get each campaign.
For example, he has lead the major leagues in both of these categories over the last two seasons with, a whopping nine complete games and four shutouts during each of the two years.
From a career prospective, he has been first or second in his league seven different times in complete games, and also six different times in shutouts as a ML starter.
I don’t think that there are two stats that show more of how a pitcher just takes control of games and his opposition than complete games and shutouts, and Roy Halladay is the best in the game because he gets many of these each season.
Also, Roy lead the majors this year in innings pitched with 250.2 innings, and is as durable as ever after logging 220+ innings each of the last five years that he has taken the hill.
If you look further into his numbers, you will see he has been steadily improving each and every year, and is becoming more and more unhittable each and every time he toes the rubber.
Add all this together and you have a dominant starting pitching force that is still getting stronger and has catapulted his game up to the very best in his sport.
If you don’t believe me, re-watch Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS, where Halladay made a mockery of the Cincinnati Reds’ offense as he delivered only the second no-hitter in postseason history.
That game was Halladay at his best, getting ground balls, making hitter looks foolish, and not letting anyone get on base against him for nearly the entire night.
In a hitter-dominated league that exists today, Halladay shines brighter than others, as he not only had a no-hitter and perfect game during the 2010 season, but he also sets the standard for all pitchers that start for their respective teams today.
Halladay is simply the best there is today, and after this season, he put this argument to rest.
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