Flashback Friday: Roy Halladay’s 10 Inning Shutout

It should come as no surprise that Roy Halladay is one of the greatest arms that the Toronto Blue Jays organization has ever produced. Doc’s career comes with many accolades; All-Star nods, two Cy Young Awards, a perfect game and no-hitter among the many of them.

While it’s fairly easy to pinpoint the greatest single moments of Halladay’s career, it’s a little more difficult to sift through the myriad of excellent moments since Roy had so many amazing single-game performances.

For this week’s Flashback Friday, we take a look back at could quite possibly be the best start Roy Halladay ever had that most people have never even heard about; his 10-inning shutout on September 6th 2003 against the Detroit Tigers.

Now, I’m not sure if this game says more about Roy Halladay or the futility of the 2003 Detroit Tigers (who lost 119 games that year), but I’m willing to say it was the former. After all, it was Doc’s 2003 Cy Young season.

A 10-inning outing by a starting pitcher is virtually unheard of these days, let alone a 10-inning shutout. I believe the last man to post a 10-inning shutout is none other than Roy Halladay’s current teammate Cliff Lee, who did it on April 18th this season.

According to GameScore, this particular start was the fifth best start of Roy Halladay’s regular season career, and came in with a GameScore of 90. That was actually just one of six games in which Halladay’s GameScore has been 90 or higher.

In true Roy Halladay form, he was the model of efficiency as the game took a mere two hours and three minutes to complete, as Doc didn’t even crack 100 pitches. Halladay held the Tigers to just three hits total and had a no-hitter in tact in the 8th inning.

Roy Halladay was just four outs away from recording a no-no before pinch hitter Kevin Witt broke it up with a double to left field. At this point, the game was still locked in a 0-0 tie, and Halladay had the wherewithal to keep it together and hold the Tigers off the board through the next 2.1 innings.

Second base was the furthest any of the Detroit Tigers would get that day, as not a single player advanced to third base or beyond against Roy Halladay. However, his teammates rallied in the bottom of the tenth to give Halladay his 19th win of the season and the walk-off victory.

Like I said off the top, it’s a shame that games like these from Roy Halladay fade into the background … and it’s simply because there are so many of them to choose from. Just another reason to look back and reflect on how great Roy Halladay truly was with the Toronto Blue Jays.