The immediate response after you see a performance like Roy Halladay's tonight is to wonder where it ranks among performances all-time. Sometimes, it turns out the performances you watch don't measure up. Halladay's does.
Roy Halladay’s No-Hitter, And The Best Starts In MLB Playoff History
You could debate something like this for ages - and some people most certainly will - but for the sake of keeping things simple, let’s use a statistic called ‘Game Score’, which I will allow Wikipedia to define:
Game Score is a metric devised by Bill James to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game.
Game score is based on a number of things, from strikeouts to runs allowed. Halladay’s no-hitter racked up a game score of 94. Where does that place when you look at all other starts throughout playoff baseball history?
Turns out it places pretty high. Here’s the list, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:
- 98. Roger Clemens, 10/14/2000
- 97. Dave McNally, 10/5/1969
- 97. Babe Ruth, 10/9/1916
- 94. Roy Halladay, 10/6/2010
- 94. Don Larsen, 10/8/1956
- 94. Ed Walsh, 10/11/1906
- 93. Josh Beckett, 10/12/2003
- 93. Ken Holtzman, 10/9/1973
- 93. Bob Gibson, 10/2/1968
- 92. Kevin Brown, 9/29/1998
You might be surprised to see baseball’s only playoff no-hitters (and one perfect game) tied for fourth, rather than first. Clemens struck out 15 batters in a nine-inning shutout, while McNally struck out 11 in an 11-inning shutout, and Ruth struck out four while allowing one run over 14 frames.
Of course, this doesn’t definitively prove anything. Based on Cincinnati’s weak contact and lack of line drives, Halladay’s start very well might’ve been better than those starts in front of him. You also have to consider the quality of competition. But I don’t have an answer to that. There’s no right or wrong answer to this. All that matters is that Roy Halladay is now in the argument. Because of his effort tonight, Roy Halladay is in the argument for having thrown the best start in MLB playoff history.
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