Game 32 – Partial Perfection

Well this seems to be somewhat of a recurring theme for games in which Halladay starts; whoever pitches the CG loses. For the 1st time in 5 starts Halladay does not finish the game. I probably would have left Halladay in for 2 more batters, Swisher and Cabrera, before going to the lefty for Thome, but at the same time the bullpen is pretty fresh and you have little margin for error w/just a 1 run lead so I’m ok w/going to Carlson for Swisher. As much of a horse as Halladay is, it doesn’t hurt to pull him a little early on occasion given the strong bullpen the Jays have. This is the 3rd straight start where 1 inning has done in the Doc. In Orlando it was the 4-run 6th. Outside of that he only gave up the leadoff triple in the 8th, which scored on a SF and 3 singles, 2 of which were erased on DP’s. In BOS he only gave up 3 singles through the 1st 8, then walked 1 in the 9th and gave up 2 singles. Now he takes it a step further, giving up 3 runs (only 1 earned) in the 4th but was perfect for the rest until leaving w/1 out in the 8th.

Not to be outdone, Contreras was actually perfect outside of the 2nd and 3rd. Now I’m sure over time there have been many outings where a pitcher is perfect if you throw out an inning, but having 2 pitchers do it in the same game is a little more rare. Especially in the method they did it as its not like they gave up 1 or 2 runners in the bad inning(s) they each gave up several runs. Halladay facing 8 batters leading to 3 runs, while Contreras faced 5 hitters in the 2nd for 1 run and 7 batters in the 3rd for 3 runs. What does it all mean? Nothing really, just one of those interesting things and it makes for a very quick game finishing in 2 hrs 12 mins (still 2 mins longer than Fri’s Buehrle vs Marcum).

One thing I don’t understand sometimes is why managers allow their pitchers to pitch to a batter in a situation early in the game, but in the same situation late in the game they’ll walk the player. For example, when Stairs came to the plate in the 3rd inning w/2nd and 3rd 2 out and the Jays about to squander a great scoring opportunity (they had 2nd and 3rd w/none out), Guillen allows Contreras to go after Stairs instead of intentionally walking him w/1st base open and a RH on deck. Even if the batter is Wells who had a couple big hits so far in the series, I would rather take my chances against him then the LH Stairs w/Contreras on the mound. Should the same situation arise later in the game, I’m sure they would walk Stairs to face Wells so why not early in the game. The fact is runs scored early count the same as runs scored late so why not treat them that way. Yes if you give up runs early you have more outs to work with to score the runs back, but why give them up in the 1st place. Plus when the other team has their ace on the mound it will not be easy to come back. In this case maybe it wouldn’t have mattered as Wells ended up w/a hit following Stairs’ double, but who knows if Wells still gets a hit if they walk Stairs to load the bases.

Now for some stats:
Adv: Wells (1)
P-Adv: Contreras
Adv+: Thome, Konerko
P-Adv+: Halladay 2 (3)
NAdv: Cabrera, Dye, Eckstein (2)
P-NAdv: Contreras, Halladay 2 (2)