Roy Halladay scuffled at times tonight, but showed enough tenacity to see the game through to the bitter end, a 5-3 loss at the hands of the Red Sox. This makes seven complete games on the season for Doc, well ahead of anyone else in the Majors.Halladay threw 126 pitches, making this the third in the last four outings that he has gone over 120. Halladay hasn't, however, won any of those games.
We've never particularly thought that pitch counts are all that people make of them, so we won't get our knickers in a twist about Halladay's workload. Generally, we find that those who harp on pitch count numbers are mostly just trying to prove that they're smarter than the manager, and that's an easy hook. (We, on the other hand, already know that we're smarter than Gibby. And likely more drunk. Go Jays.)
Doc hasn't appeared the labour through these past four games. With hindsight being 20/20 - and a Kevin Youkilis bomb the deep center make that vision that much clearer - we might have brought in a fresher arm in the eighth. (Wolfey, we've missed you!) But at the time, our gut was telling us to let Halladay dust it off, and hope for the offense to come through for him.
Speaking of the offense
Matt Stairs is awesome. The rest of y'all suck. But we're sure that it's because you're hurt.
Speaking of "hurt" and "sucking"
We always thought that Lyle Overbay was supposed to be a "doubles machine", not a "grounds-into-double-plays machine".
Complete games? I got yer complete games right here, pal!
Halladay's recent streak of durability is strangely reminiscent of Our Patron Saint's 1982 campaign. Stieb finished the season with an astounding 19 complete games. From August 10th on, he went at least nine innings in 10 of 12 contests, including a September 16th contest versus the Angels where he went 11 innings and faced 39 batters. (And Roy Lee Jackson got the win in the 12th...which goes to show the value of wins, no?)
11 innings and 39 batters faced is a ridiculously good looking game.
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