Or, as Vince Carter once said in happier times, “IT’S OVER!”

Oh yeah, we all were perfectly well aware that ideally the team would score some more runs, and give Doc a cushion. Still - if one run was all that was going to be available, not to worry. Doc would simply say “Fine. So I’ll just pitch another shutout, then.”

As R Billie pointed out in the Instant Replay, Doc really wasn’t at the absolute top of his game, and had to battle there for a while. Which is absolutely true. Doc was scuffling.

He gave up one run, he walked a couple of guys. This is what he does when he’s scuffling.

Is there a better pitcher in the game today? Is there another pitcher you would rather have?

Shut up, Gleeman. I love Johan Santana, too – but this is just his second year as a full-time starter.

I’m a big fan of Mark Prior, too. And I’ll be an even bigger fan when he makes it through a season without going on the DL. (It would really, really help if he would stop running the bases. Or blocking line drives with his pitching arm.)

Dontrelle Willis and Jake Peavy are wonderful young talents. The sky may very well be the limit for both of them. But they haven't done it yet. Peavy's best so far is 15-6 last year, Dontrelle's his 14-6 as a rookie in 2003. Neither has ever pitched 200 innings in a season.

Obviously, Doc’s career accomplishments come nowhere close to matching the career achievements of Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Schilling, Pedro. But the end is very near for every one of those guys, even Clemens. Maybe not Pedro, who is still only 33, but as brilliant and dazzling as Martinez has been again this year, don't we all live in fear that what is rumoured to be a damaged labrum may just give out one of these days?

Who else would you rather have?

The secret, if secret there ever was, is out. Over at Athletics Nation last night, there was a great deal of chest-pounding and pride over the fact that the A’s scored a single run off Halladay. Because “we’ve scored as many runs off Halladay in 4 IP as the rest of the AL has scored in his last 35 IP.”

I've spoken a fair bit about Run Support lately, mostly with respect to Dave Bush. Bush's problems notwithstanding, he did pitch quite a bit better than his 0-5 record suggests. His team gave him very little to work with.

The same team hasn't given Roy Halladay much to work with either. But Roy Halladay is a great, great pitcher and that makes all the difference in the world. When Dave Bush pitched well, and his team didn't mount much offense, Bush got tagged with a Tough Loss. When Roy Halladay's team doesn't give him much in the way of offense, Doc hangs a Tough Loss on the other guy.

You don't have to take my word for it, you can check with these guys: Pedro Astacio. Randy Johnson. Zack Greinke. Joe Mays. And, of course, Ryan Glynn. They all pitched very fine games against the Blue Jays, and they all took the big L for their efforts.

There are 92 pitchers in the major leagues who are getting better run support than Roy Halladay.

There are 0 pitchers in the major leagues who have won more games. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Not a one.

The one guy with as many wins as Halladay, Dontrelle Willis, is enjoying better than 2 more runs of offense each game than what Doc makes do with - the Marlins are scoring almost 6 runs per game for him - and Dontrelle is surely very happy indeed to have made the acquaintance of a certain Puerto Rican first baseman.

Some of you may remember the novel-length piece I wrote on Dave Stieb back in March. Towards the end, in order to demonstrate how thoroughly Stieb dominates the team record book, I wrote the following:

"If Roy Halladay, who will be 28 in May, starts 35 games a year until he's 35... he won't catch Stieb. If he works 230 IP a year until he's 35... he won't catch Stieb. If he can win 15 a year until he's 35... he won't catch Stieb. He'll be really close, though. And if he can average 150 Ks a year until he's 35, he can actually pass Stieb."

Now I would be shocked and amazed if Halladay actually read that. But doesn’t his performance make you think that he did? And said to himself “OK, 15 wins and 230 IP isn’t enough to get it done? No problem. No problem at all. Just watch me.”

Halladay is on pace to make 35 starts and pitch 267.1 innings, with a 24-5 record, 192 Ks, just 46 BB. This was his 76th win as a Blue Jay, moving him into a tie with Juan Guzman for 6th place in franchise history. He needs 8 more wins to catch David Wells. What do you think, late August for that? He needs 10 more strikeouts to catch Wells for 6th place in that category. Two more shutouts will make him just the fourth Toronto pitcher ever to pitch 10 shutouts. Stieb of course pitched 30 shutouts as a Blue Jay, and it's one of two Stieb records that I still feel absolutely confident is out of Doc’s reach. That, and hitting batters. But the rest... I’m just not so sure anymore.

He is the Stopper.

You see, way back in the day, before most of you young punks reading this were even born, this was the phrase applied to a great starting pitcher. They called him the Stopper because what he stopped were losing streaks. Before they got out of hand. If you’ve got Sandy Koufax pitching every fourth day and going 25-5, how the hell are you going to have a long losing streak?

Now in all honesty, this was really before my time – I actually remember the term “stopper” being applied to relief aces. They came in and stopped the other team from mounting a rally. They were fireman, coming in to douse the blaze.

But teams don’t use their ace relievers like that anymore. Their role now is to finish the game. Hence they are called “closers.” So we can return the term “stopper” back to the starting rotation.

The Jays have lost 26 games this year, and they have (naturally!) played 26 games following a loss. They’ve gone 13-13 in those games. They’ve gone 6-1 in the 7 games that Halladay started after a loss. Doc himself is 5-1. The other starters are a combined 5-9.

You want to be a contender? It helps to avoid losing streaks. The Jays lost 5 in a row to New York and Baltimore in April, and 4 in a row to Baltimore and Chicago in early May. And surprise, surprise! Those two losing streaks are where you will find Halladay’s two losses this season.

And those two losing streaks are the only times this year that the Blue Jays have lost more than two games in a row. Roy Halladay doesn't permit these things. He is The Man. The Ace. The Stopper.