Carson on Jays: Filling the void

The past and current aces of the Toronto Blue Jays were on display on Sunday afternoon, both going the distance for complete game victories.

For Roy Halladay it was old hat, his 63rd as a Major Leaguer in his 337th career start – or one every 5.3 starts if you will, as he joined Jair Jurrjens (ATL), CC Sabathia (NYY) and Justin Verlander (DET) in the 10-win club this season.

For Ricky Romero it was a little bit of everything: his second career shutout to go with his first career hit, a two-run single to turn a tight game into a laugher, the capper of a Blue Jays three-game sweep over the Cardinals.

Both pitchers have shown the ability to go deep into a game on a regular basis. Going back to his days with the Jays, Halladay has been the league leader in innings pitched four times and is leading the National League again to this point of the season. Look up the phrase ‘work horse’ in the baseball dictionary and it says “see him”. Quite simply, he finishes what he starts, and gives his team a chance to win each and every time that his number is called. Romero is a little newer to this game, in just his third full season in the Majors after the Jays took him in the first round (6th overall) in the 2005 draft.

But when you put their numbers side by side, especially over each starter’s last nine appearances, you see that these two studs aren’t too far apart:

The biggest difference between the two is that Halladay pitches for a perennial playoff contender in Philadelphia while Romero toils in Toronto for a team in yet another rebuild. This was the reason that Halladay asked out following the 2009 season with a new front office under Alex Anthopoulos coming in and the franchise 16 years removed from Joe Carter touching ’em all. Romero was a rookie during that season and was able to take in Halladay’s final season North of the Border.

Not that Romero can ever really be expected to fill Halladay’s big shoes, but Romero is starting to eat up his missing innings. He has worked at least seven innings in nine straight starts – the longest such streak in the Majors – putting together an airtight 1.95 ERA over that span. Unfortunately for Romero, he doesn’t quite get the same level of run support that Halladay gets. During those nine games, Romero’s Jays only scored nine total runs of support in the four games that Romero didn’t win.

Things should be very interesting this weekend when the Phillies make a visit to close out the interleague portion of the schedule. Both pitchers will start in this series — unfortunately they won’t face each other, which would have been quite a matchup. Romero will start on Friday while Halladay makes his Rogers Centre return on Saturday.

Roller coaster roadtrip

Quite a few storylines throughout this nine-game road trip through the National League. It started well enough with a pair of victories in Cincinnati. Then the bats went silent in four straight losses where the Jays culled together just three runs total. Finally, Eric Thames was recalled from Las Vegas to kick start the offence and he did just that, chipping in with a pair of doubles in the series opener to key the sweep. Thames was rewarded for his contribution by watching from the sidelines over the next two wins. Not sure what to make of that, especially with Rajai Davis in the grips of a 5-for-60 (with 19 strikeouts) slump, and Corey Patterson allowing a couple of catchable fly balls to fall in during the trip.