Lots of Pitches

Wednesday, June 03 2009 @ 12:15 AM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Macier Izturis looked at a called third strike (there being little point in actually swinging at the damn thing) for the final out of the ballgame. It was the 133rd pitch Roy Halladay had thrown in the game, a new career high.

How about that?

Me, I absolutely don't care. As I've commented many times, I'm much more interested in how much time the man spends working out than the number of reps he does while he's working. So I'd rather see something like tonight, where Halladay throw 133 pitches in 2 hours and 22 minutes rather than throwing 100 pitches in some three hour plus marathon.

Gerry did say, however, that "It will be interesting to see how Doc pitches on Sunday after the 133 pitches tonight.  Usually that is when you see the fall-out."

Well, there's something we can look up! Time to visit my handy-dandy database of every major league appearance Roy Halladay has ever made - and I can tell you, this is something I've enjoyed maintaining.

This was the 12th time in his career that Halladay has thrown more than 120 pitches in a start. His record in those 12 games is 4-4, 2.96. He's pitched 94.2 IP, allowed 38 runs (31 ER), given up 96 hits (4 homers), struck out 81 and walked 29. Both the strikeout and walk figures are significantly higher than Halladay's well-established career norms. Over his career Halladay has averaged 6.5 Ks and 2.1 BB per 9 innings - but in these games, those figures are 7.7 and 2.8, so that's obviously what was driving up his pitch count in these particular games.  Just 3 of those 12 starts saw Halladay actually throw a complete game.

There are, so far, 11 Next Starts to look at. In those 11 games, Halladay is 7-2, 3.25. He's pitched 83.2 IP, allowed 30 runs (30 ER), given up 83 hits (5 HR), struck out 53 and walked 16. You will notice that in these games he allows hits at exactly the same rate, but both the Ks and BBs drop below his career averages (to 5.7 and 1.7).

Curiously enough, there is actually some overlap between these two lists. Two of the Next Starts after a 120+ pitch outing turned out to be another 120+ pitch outing. In fact four of Halladay's twelve 120+ pitch games came from a stretch of five consecutive starts in August and September 2007 - and the one start in that stretch where he didn't throw 120+ pitches came in a complete game loss against the Angels (the Jays were shutout, he took a 3-0 loss.)

Anyway, here are the 12 starts, in chronological order:

Career Team
Game   Game Date         Opp Rest  Result  Dec  IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR    BF    Pit

85    48   May 27 2002  BOS  4    L,6-8   L    6    8    6    2    2    7    0    29    126
123    66   Jun 11 2003  PIT  4    W,8-5   W    8    8    1    1    1    9    0    33    120
153    38   May 16 2004  BOS  4    W,3-1   W    7    6    1    1    2    6    0    28    120
174    38   May 15 2005  @CLE 4    W,5-2   W    7.2   5    1    1    3    6    0    30    124
236    103   Jul 28 2007  @CHW 5    L,0-2   L    8    10    2    2    2    7    1    35    126
240    123   Aug 19 2007  BAL  4    W,3-2        9    6    2    2    3    5    0    35    120
242    133   Aug 29 2007  @OAK 4    L,4-5        9    7    4    4    6    4    0    36    124
243    138   Sep  4 2007  @BOS 5    L,3-5   L    8    9    5    5    2    7    2    35    126
244    143   Sep 10 2007  @DET 5    L,4-5        8.2  11    3    3    1    3    0    36    123
264    79   Jun 25 2008  CIN 4    L,5-6        6.2   9    5    5    4    7    1    33    121
272    117   Aug  9 2008  CLE  4    L,2-4   L    6.2  10    4    1    2    6    0    34    130
293     54   Jun  2 2009  LAA  5    W,6-4   W    9    7    4    4    1   14    0    33    133
And here's what happened the next time out:
Career Team
Game   Game Date      Opp Rest  Result  Dec  IP    H    R   ER    BB  SO   HR    BF    Pit

 86      53  Jun  2 2002  @DET  5    W,7-6    W   8    11    6    6    1    7    1    36    114
124      71  Jun 18 2003  @BAL  6    W,6-2    W   7    6    2    2    0    5    1    27    91
154    42  May 21 2004  @BOS  4    L,5-11      6    7    5    5    5    3    0    27    98
175    43  May 21 2005  WSN   5    W,7-0    W   7    4    0    0    2    2    0    26    98
237    108  Aug  3 2007  TEX   5    W,6-4    W   6    7    4    4    2    9    0    28    105
241    128  Aug 24 2007  @LAA  4    L,0-3   L   8    12    3    3    0    5    0    36    111
243    138  Sep  4 2007  @BOS  5    L,3-5    L   8    9    5    5    2    7    2    35    126
244    143  Sep 10 2007  @DET  5    L,4-5        8.2  11    3    3    1    3    0    36    123
245    148  Sep 15 2007  BAL   4    W,8-3    W   7    5    1    1    2    2    0    25    100
265    84  Jun 30 2008  @SEA  4    W,2-0    W   9    4    0    0    0    6    0    32    115
273    123  Aug 16 2008  @BOS  6    W,4-1    W   9    7    1    1    1    4    1    32    109






















Yup. Halladay is even more likely to win the game than usual - he's won 7 of the 11 games. Over his career, Halladay has won 51% of his starts (137 of 267), which is pretty phenomenal itself.

Halladay is actually more likely to throw a complete game in the Next Start ( 4 out of 11) than in one of the 120+ outings (3 of 12).

Let's face it - the man is a Living.... wait a minute. I promised, didn't I? Not going to go there.

Sorry.

He's pretty good, OK.


63 comments



https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20090602234601384