Roy Halladay has already had a pretty impressive career, he's won a Cy Young award, thrown a perfect game, and played in seven All Star games. The only thing that Halladay didn't have on his resume was playoff experience. Coming into today Halladay had pitched in more games (320) than any other active pitcher who had never pitched in the postseason.
Today Halladay finally got to pitch in the playoffs, and he made the most of it to say the least....
Halladay threw the second no hitter in postseason history in his playoff debut; it is also Halladay's second no hitter of the season (his first no no was actually a perfect game). The only other no hitter in playoff history came in 1956 when Don Larsen threw a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series.
Roy has been lights out all season. He led the NL in wins with 21, was second in strikeouts with 219, and third in ERA at 2.44. So we could expect Halladay to be a dominate in the postseason, but this dominant? I don't think the Doc himself thought he'd have a debut like he did.
Halladay was as good as we've ever seen anyone pitch in the playoffs. He only threw 104 pitches (79 strikes) and had eight strikeouts in his complete game no hitter. The only Reds player to reach base was Jay Bruce in the fifth after a full count walk, and only two Reds batters (Bruce included) would even work Halladay into a three ball count. Reds batters swung and missed on 17 of 25 off speed pitches that Halladay threw.
Not only was Halladay dominant on the mound, but he brought it with the stick too. Halladay was 1 for 3 with an RBI. He is the only player in postseason history to have more hits than the team that he pitched against. I don't know how else to explain how dominant Halladay was, the more I think about it the more mind boggling it becomes.
Hats off to you Roy "Doc" Halladay. Way to make a first impression.
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