Halladay's streak of opening-day starts likely to end
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Halladay's streak of opening-day starts likely to end
Bob Brookover, Inquirer Baseball Columnist
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Pitching coach Rich Dubee is not ready to announce the Phillies’ opening-day starter in Atlanta, but read between the lines of what he’s saying and you can conclude that the decision is down to Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee.
That means someone other than Roy Halladay would be the opening-day starter for the Phillies for the first time since the team acquired the two-time Cy Young Award winner from Toronto before the 2010 season.
“I think it’s how we line up best,” Dubee said. “Realistically, we could pitch anybody the first day as far as Doc, Cole and Cliff. On most staffs, they are No. 1 starters, so they all could pitch opening day. But part of what we’re thinking is trying to split those two lefties. Last year we started with two lefties (after Halladay) and I’d just like to split them up.”
That scenario would probably place Halladay on the mound for the second game of the season-opening series against the Braves. It would mark the first time since 2002 that he did not make an opening-day start. His first opening-day assignment was in 2003 with Toronto against Roger Clemens and the New York Yankees.
The Phillies are 3-0 in Halladay’s opening-day starts and he won two of those games, including last year when he pitched eight shutout innings in a 1-0 win at Pittsburgh.
Dubee does not believe Halladay will have any objection to the end of his 10-year streak as an opening-day starter.
“I think those three guys we’re talking about, they just want to pitch,” Dubee said. “It's an honor to pitch opening day, but I think they’ve all done it in the pas ... so it’s not like it would be their first time.”
Actually, if Hamels ends up being the opening-day starter, it would be his first time. Based on overall performance from last season, Hamels is the most deserving candidate to make the opening-day start against the Braves, but you could make a case for Lee, too.
Hamels has a career record of 12-7 with a 3.58 ERA against Atlanta and was 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA last season. Lee is 4-4 with a 3.08 ERA against the Braves and was 1-1 with a 0.60 ERA last season.
Halladay, on the other hand, had a miserable time against the Braves last season, going 0-2 with an 11.21 ERA in four starts.
If the Phillies wanted to give Halladay some sort of distinction, they could allow him to start the home opener against the Kansas City Royals, a team he dominated when he was in the American League. That would mean Kyle Kendrick would pitch the second game of the season.
Dubee said he was not inclined to make that move at this point.
“We’re probably going to run our first three guys out there in Atlanta,” he said.
I'm fine with any of the three pitchers pitching on opening day. What I find ridiculous is that the media (both radio and print) in this town has been making this a huge issue all winter, that Hamels should be the opening day starter. Who cares? It's one start out of 34 for the year. Splitting up the lefties makes sense. It's the same thing with this Charlie Manual contract issue. The media keeps on asking Manual the same stupid questions over and over about his contract. It's getting old.
Can someone please explain to me one good reason for alternating left and right handed pitchers from one game to the next. It's pointless.— dscol- @ dscol The reason you split a right and left-handed pitcher up is to give the opposing team in a given series a different look on back to back days. It keeps the hitters off balance a little bit. Nothing more.— Roy_Halladay
- Yet Utley will still bat before Howard. Can Dubee discuss hitting with Charlie?— burholme
- 62-100— Flyerdom
- That's harsh.
80-82. Little worse than the year before, as they have been trending since they won it all. Gotta purge the core...Rollins, Utley, Howard. They had their dynasty shot. They blew it. They gotta go.— mephisto - Yep, yep, Roy is correct. I like it, Dubes is correct and Cole deserves the start this year. Hamels-Doc-Lee, lots of teams would sell their first-born to run them out there like that.— PhillySubsMac
- @ Flyerdom 62-100? That's about how many total goals the Flyers are going to score this season.— Roy_Halladay
- If it's the Braves maybe Kendrick should be the opening day pitcher. ;-)
Hamels deserves it. Yeah, I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but he deserves it anyway.— s - Any way you shuffle it you eventually have to go lefty followed by lefty at some point - now you just have Lannan pitching before Hamels on Saturday & Sunday vs the Royals. I like the idea of giving Doc the Home Opener but that's probably because I have tickets Friday & Saturday and am not doing cartwheels over a Kendrick/Lannan weekend.
— bird11 - Hamels is the future, had the best 2012 and should start opening day if he's pain-free in late March. As for the record: 86-76, maybe back into a wild card spot.
— therealeman - Who cares. Just win the game.— oakmontleo
...just set the rotation up with Hamels first and go in turn from there...so what if Kendrick starts the Home Opener?...it's only the Royals anyway...who cares?...- I love that Charlie feels the need to separate righties and lefties in the rotation but feels no need whatsoever to do that in the lineup, where it actually matters.
— Snake Pliskin - kendrick actually has good numbers against the braves— FunCakes
