Friday, October 22, 2010

Did Roy Halladay really Out Duel Tim Lincecum?


The headline of the recap from ESPN is "Roy Halladay outduels Tim Lincecum to boost Phillies past Giants in Game 5" but is that really what happened or is it just ESPN's east coast bias showing through?

When you take a closer look at the numbers it is really hard to justify saying that Hallday pitched better then Lincecum.

Lincecum matched or beat Halladay in every stat.

Innings pitched, 7 compared to 6. Strikeouts, 7 compared to 5. Walks, 1 compared to 2. Hits, 4 compared to 6. Earned runs each with 2. Line drives given up, 6 compared to 7. And finally gamescore, 65 compared to 55.

The only difference in this game is that Lincecum's defense let him down while Halladay's was able to make plays when it mattered most.

There is absolutely no justification to that headline and I wonder if the guy who wrote it even watched the game. The storyline of this game was the mistakes made by the Giants defense and the plays that the Phillies made.

If you watched the game you could see that Lincecum was the better pitcher and that Halladay was visibly on the ropes but had enough left to make it through with some backing of his buddies in the field. The headline could have still focused on Halladay if the headline guys read the story and wanted to make a big deal about him pitching through a pulled groin.

They could have blown it up like the "bloody sock" game.

This is just a lazy attempt and makes you wonder if 800 pound gorilla of the sports world even watches the games.

If your on Twitter you should definitely follow the The Crazy Crabbers. If you're not you should really consider joining, lots of good stuff going on there.

1 comment:

  1. I'm sure they watch the games. But I think you're spot on about the East Coast bias angle. I heard Peter Gammons on KNBR this morning gushing like a teenage girl about Roy Halladay. It makes me sick. But on the other hand, I kind of like being the underdog. A lot of people are rooting for the Giants, because we ARE the (perceived) underdog.

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