Roy Halladay will start Saturday
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Roy Halladay will start Saturday
Matt Gelb, Inquirer Staff Writer
For nine minutes Wednesday, Rich Dubee watched Roy Halladay throw in the bullpen at Citizens Bank Park. He saw a "completely" different pitcher than the one who could not finish two innings last week because of a spasm in his shoulder.
At 3:41 p.m., Halladay sat on a bench in the bullpen and chatted with Dubee. The decision was made: Halladay, bothered by shoulder maladies all season, will start Saturday in a meaningless game.
"This guy is super accountable," said Dubee, the team's pitching coach. "He feels like he should carry his end of the bargain. And he has."
Dubee maintained the team feels no structural damage can be inflicted with one additional start in 2012. He said Halladay has long dealt with these random spasms, which arose three to four other times this season. "You guys don’t know half of what goes on," Dubee said.
In any case, Halladay wants this last start to feel better about heading into an important winter. He will totally reshape his offseason program, from throwing patterns to conditioning tactics.
Halladay will turn 36 in May and is a free agent after 2013. He is due $20 million next season. With that much at stake, isn't another 100 pitches on an already taxed arm superfluous?"No," Dubee said, "because he wants to take the mound and I understand why."
Dubee believes Halladay is setting the highest example even in a season when little has gone right.
"This is the top of accountability," Dubee said. "He isn't happy with his season. He came here to win, and he feels like he didn't hold up his end of the bargain. I think he's held up more than his end of the bargain just coming back from the injury that he came back from.
"He's going to do anything he can to come back next year. He is open minded and we're going to put together a program that hopefully that is going to fix all this."
Before that, Halladay has one night in Miami to foster good feelings.
Have a question? Send it to Matt Gelb's Mailbag.
Everybody keeps saying what's the sense in Halladay starting another game, just shut him down. Well, follow the money. If I'm not mistaken, Halladay's status for 2014 is dependent on the number of innings pitched in 2012 and 2013. If he can pick up, say, another 14 innings yet this year, it may go a long way toward the vested option for 2014. It looks like now the most he might get is, hopefully, another 7. I know he wasn't planning on missing 7 weeks worth of innings earlier this year, but I'm sure he is adding them up for 30 starts next year.
— cuyatm- If his next start was in Philly, I don't think they'd let him do it.— evolutionary
- Roy decides what Roy does, and that's just the way it is in the Manuel/Dubee regime...For Halladay, a competitor to the NTH degree, there's NO WAY he goes into his offseason with that last performance hanging over him...Despite the big pricetag, the brass no doubt will have more modest expectations for a 36 year old Roy in 2013, so maybe he ekes out a new identity re-inventing himself with a different repertoire...He's not King of the Hill anymore, but he's far from dust.— bearsfriend
- One suggestion, Roy (and Cliff, too)...do not throw a hittable pitch on 0-2 counts! And anyone that thinks Roy wants to start for monetary purposes is dead wrong.— jimyd0315
- He wants to end on a positive note. At least everyone gets a longer break then they have in the last five years without any bothersome playoff series to go through. Suddenly with Eagles looking bad and NHL not playing, it will be a long, cold winter!— burholme
- Why? He has single handily destroyed our season. I for one wish I could be present to boo him for each pitch.— lonewolf 10
- Lee has almost the same stats as Hamels and has significanly better stats across the board (ERA, k's, whip) than 15 pitchers who have between 14 and 17 wins, yet a whole bunch of morons here still mkae comments equating Lee's season to Halladay's in some manner— warbiscuit
- instead of Kendrick becoming another Halladay, alas Halladay became another Kendrick— warbiscuit
