Roy Halladay's Heartbreak

It's the ninth inning of a scoreless game between the Red Sox and Blue Jays. Roy Halladay and Jon Lester had both pitched brilliantly, holding the other team scoreless through eight innings. Papelbon came on to help Lester, but with the shay back end of the Toronto pen--closer B.J. Ryan coming off TJ surgery, setup man Jeremy Accardo with an ERA over 8--the game was Halladay's to win or lose.  Three times already, he'd gone the distance, but had lost two of those games when Toronto failed to muster enough offense to give him the win. Would this time be the charm?

With two outs, Ortiz worked him for a walk. Manny Ramirez poked a sinking liner to center. With a depleted bench, Ortiz would have to run for himself. Sure enough, Kevin Youkilis, his upper hand delicately fluttering on the bat handle, the bat waving in the air, sliced a liner into short center. Vernon Wells, seeing Ortiz lumbering around third, set himself up for the throw.

Then the ball, as it tends to do, took a bad hop, Wells juggled it, and couldn't recover in time to get Ortiz out. Game over, 1-0, Boston, and for the third time in his past four starts, Halladay went the distance in vain. Though the ball had taken a bad bounce on Wells, Halladay stormed off the field, livid at his bad luck.

I could take this opportunity to rant about the unfairness of the way statisticians assign wins and losses—Papelbon got the win for doing nothing more than throwing a scoreless ninth, while Lester got the win and Halladay was hung with the loss--but instead it makes me wonder why teams never seem to score runs behind their aces.

On a certain level, the answer is obvious: They know their top dog is on the hill, they don't need as many runs as they normally might, and then they relax a little--and it's often a little too much. But that flies in the face of athletic common sense. Athletes, especially in a skill sport like baseball, do better when they're relaxed. Why don't they do better in these situations? If anything, they should realize all they need is a run. Why can't they perform?

Not to take anything away from Lester, who dueled brilliantly against Halladay. Perhaps it's a phenomenon to be laid at the feet of the other team. The guy who faces the stud steps up his game. Maybe that's the answer.

Whatever it is, you've got to feel for Halladay, who's doing everything he can to get his team to a win, but he just can't get over the hump. Toronto's no slouch at the plate, especially now that Rolen is healthy again. They should be able to string some hits together with their perennial Cy Young candidate on the bump--shouldn't they?

Meanwhile, the Brew Crew have put up nine runs through seven innings for Ben Sheets, their ace. Maybe that's just how the ball bounces sometimes in baseball.