Sam Donnellon: His approach sets Halladay apart

THE DAY after Roy Halladay was traded to the Phillies last December, a few reporters from Toronto called. All said about the same thing, to expect everything when he was on the mound, not much from him when he wasn't. Nice guy, but he wasn't going to fill even the corner of a bulletin board, at any time.

Oh, and one more thing.

"He'll make the entire staff better," said Steve Simmons, of the Toronto Star. "Right down to the last arm, the last reliever."

Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee said yesterday that Halladay did that for his staff in 2010. Jose Contreras switched from starter to reliever and was a find. Ryan Madson had his best season yet when he wasn't kicking inanimate objects. Brad Lidge bounced back. Cole Hamels did, too. Even Kyle Kendrick, whose locker was situated close to Halladay's, seemed to be figuring things out there for a while.

Who knows, maybe even the breakout season of catcher Carlos Ruiz, whom Halladay dubbed, "Probably the best I've ever had," had something to do with Doc coming to town.

"Roy just sets such a great example," Dubee said. "Preparation. Before his starts. And also the way he approaches each game on the mound."

Dubee also reminded those on a conference call yesterday, after Halladay was named the 2010 National League Cy Young Award winner, how Roy Wonder kept the team afloat in the first part of the season, when bodies were dropping daily and the upstart Braves were threatening to create a double-digit, first-place lead.

And yet none of that really factored into the pitcher's unanimous selection yesterday, his second Cy Young Award, and first in the National League. The numbers ruled the day. His 21 victories were a league best. So was the amount of innings he pitched, his ultimate source of pride. A perfect game helped. The votes were in by the time he threw an unprecedented second no-no in the postseason.

Halladay will tell you it is all a byproduct of his approach. Pitch as well as you can for as long as you can, help your team win.

"He's always talking the game," said Dubee, which leads to perhaps the best offshoot of Halladay's Cy Young season.

Colbert Michael Hamels.

"I think he and Cole really bonded closely this year," Dubee said. "Just watching the way he goes about his business. And also having conversations about the position and the things he does."

Hamels is an interesting piece of evidence on several levels. His pitching personality over the last three seasons, at least as it has been perceived, is nothing short of schizophrenia. We thought he had evolved into a tough-minded ace during that 2008 World Series championship run, pitching through the miserable conditions of that rain-ridiculous Game 5 in which his changeup, his best pitch, was useless.

Then came his arm-weary 2009 and the home runs and hissy fits, and some infamously self-centered-sounding comments about wishing the season was over amid a postseason run in which his focus was desperately needed. When Cliff Lee was traded with 1 year and $9 million left on his contract, many bemoaned that the wrong lefty had been dealt, and that both Lee and Hamels would remind us of that in the years to come.

When I reach heaven, one of the first things I am going to ask is what the Lee deal was really about to the Phillies. Because if they had kept both him and Hamels, and both men had done in 2010 what they did in 2009, the clamor to keep Lee and trade away the lesser expensive and much younger Hamels would have been deafening and perhaps destructive in terms of chemistry.

Instead, it worked out about as well as it could have for the Phillies, especially when they added Roy Oswalt. Halladay was a better regular-season pitcher than Lee, who is not even in the conversation for American League Cy Young, which will be announced today. And Hamels became ice again on the mound, adding both a pitch and added panache.

"Just watching Cole go out there every 5 days," Halladay said, "it didn't matter who he faced. His stuff, at times, was unhittable."

Unhittable. A pitcher slotted third on the current staff, a pitcher still filling out his frame, a guy who may someday yet get to Halladay's level. Hamels took a big-boy step in that direction this season, helping to create this town's most talked-about triumvirate since The Legion of Doom.

If the year of the pitcher becomes the era of the pitcher, as the success of the Giants, Padres and Braves suggested this season, then it is really impossible to overstate the effect Halladay had in quickly morphing his team into that model. It's not why he won the Cy Young yesterday, and it likely will get lost among the numbers and feats he posted this season. But if you were watching every day, and most of you were, it is undoubtedly the best part about having him.

Send e-mail to donnels@phillynews.com.

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