This post is undoubtedly going to piss Terry off. It potentially could initially make him vow never to talk to me again, because to be quite frank, it's kinda shitty to throw this in his face less than 24 hours later. But all in all, Terry should actually be happy about what I have to say. It should make him feel a lot better about rooting for the only team in the playoffs that is still hitless. What I have to say is...Roy Halladay's performance last night was the greatest pitching performance I have ever seen in my life.
Now, let me state this clearly. It was the best piece of pitching I've ever seen. Was it the best "stuff" I've ever seen? Not really. Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez have put in performances which I was lucky enough to view in which their "stuff" was impossible to surpass, and even (and I hate to say this, truly I do) Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout performance exhibited pure "stuff" that was breathtaking and left me awestruck. But what Roy Halladay did last night was pitching, PITCHING, at it's apex.
Don't get me wrong, Halladay's "stuff" was nothing to scoff at. In fact, he had exceptional stuff last night. His sinker was driving downward hard in the last 15 to 10 feet, he had precise command of his curveball, his change-up looked identical to his fastball out of his hand, and his fastball, both 4 seam and his cutter, were thrown with pinpoint control, and at 91-94 mph thrown with enough velocity to slip past the Reds hitter's bats. But, his stuff wasn't over the top unhittable. Instead, what made him so unhittable was how he took all 4 (5 if we are counting the 4 seam and cutting his fastball as 2 different pitches) and pieced them together. It was the beauty of turning pitching from science to art. Showing that it's not what "stuff" you have, but rather how you use it.
I watched all 104 pitches Halladay threw, and while there is nothing scientific here and I'm doing this off the top of my head, I can remember Halladay making roughly about 6 or 7 "bad" pitches. Meaning, after watching where the catcher set up then seeing what pitch was thrown, Halladay only missed the intended location on about a handful of pitches. Even his 1 walk, which was the only thing standing between a no-hitter and a perfect game, was a thing of beauty. The entire at-bat Halladay was attempting to get the free swinging and oft missing Jay Bruce to chase pitches out of the zone, and he almost suceeded. The count worked to 3-2 and Bruce was able to lay off a cutter down and in, but the entire at bat Halladay seemed in control, even getting Bruce to flinch slightly at the last pitch. As a former pitcher and a pitching aficionado, I relished in what I was watching.
This was the type of masterful work that should be studied. I think any kid age 18 and under should sit down and watch the tape of Halladay's night and study pitching. To use an English comparison, a book like "No Country For Old Men" is great for it's raw nature and unabashed, in-your-face style, much like a pitcher with a great fastball slider combo, whereas Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" is more delicately crafted, each sentence having a seemingly significant meaning, everything with a purpose all leading towards the climax, much like Halladay's gem. Both lead to greatness, but crafty is more consistently amazing than gut-wrenching brutality. The explosive fastball-slider combo can be there on rare given nights, but what Halladay did was take the stuff he has almost every single night, and craft a gem for the ages.
At one point, around the 4th inning, I thought to myself, "He's working hard in, and soft away." And he was pounding his fastball in on hitters hands and working his off-speed pitches away, keeping hitters off balance. But no sooner did I say that, Halladay flipped the switch, a plot twist of sorts (cheesy, I know), and began pounding his sinker down, occasionally mixing in off-speed stuff to keep the Reds off balance, and only working hard up in the zone to put guys away. He changed how he was pitching in the middle of the game, and was still effective in every aspect of his game. He switched from getting hitters to think East-West (in-out), to getting them to focus North-South (up-down). It was unfair to be honest. And just when that pattern became clear, Halladay began to work backward, throwing off-speed stuff early to get hitters on their toes and out front. Then, by about the 8th, he had the Reds so off balance that, not to sound to cocky, I knew a no hitter was almost inevitable. He had everything working with perfect command, perfect timing, with perfect anticipation, and perfect imagination.
My old baseball coach in college(that prick) never understood that pitching was an art, not a science. Now I have the tape to show him exactly what I meant. Halladay constructed one of the most beautiful pitching performaces possibly in basebally history, and definitely in my lifetime.
So, Terry, as hard as it is to swallow (and you swallow a lot), look at it this way; your team got beat by the greatest pitching performance of my lifetime, and possibly ever. And they're still down just 1-0 in the series.
But they still don't have a hit.
-Ben Wills
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