What do Doc and Ollie have in common?

Written by Mike Mariano | 31 May 2010

Nothing.  I just need an excuse to write about both of them in the same article.  Roy Halladay proves himself day-in and day-out as one of the best pitchers in baseball and Olive Perez proves day-in and day-out that paying him in monopoly money would still be a waste of resources.

Doc's Perfection:  A week after Doc was named the pitcher with the nastiest stuff by the ESPN anonymous players poll, he goes out and throws a perfect game.  Unlike Dallas Braden, I'm sure there were few people in baseball surprised to hear about it.  Even sweeter it was against a divisional opponent, the Marlins, who I always love beating.  Also, it takes a little wind out of the Mets sails who've been SCREAMING AND YELLING about their recent sweep and shut-outs despite the fact that they're still only one game about .500.  My favorite thing about the day, Roy selflessly talking about how great of a job Carlos Ruiz did.  You have to love pitchers giving their catchers a ton of love, even after accomplishing one of the rarest feats in baseball history.  There's a reason that everybody loves Roy Halladay and that's a big one.

Run Support: I've heard the stats.  The Phillies have only scored like 4 runs in their last 7-8 games.  Everyone is struggling.  Rallies are harder to come by than intelligent Mets fans.  Things are going poorly at the plate, Alex wrote all about it yesterday.  However, the fact remains that there's no reason to be worried.  So the best offense in the NL over the past 3-5 years decided to take a week or two off and make some outs.  Well boo hoo, it sure has been terrible getting a taste of what Mets fans go through all the time.  This is baseball, you're going to slump and sometimes you're going to slump HARD.   This is one of those times.  If anything, I'm giddy over how good the pitching has been.  We might be losing a lot of 1-0 games, but give it up for the staff keeping teams that low.

Oliver Perez: Few things make Phillies fans happier over in Flushing than Ollie.  Back in January '09, Matt had this to say about the Ollie signing:

"his is a big win for Omar Minaya.  Scott Boras had been hoping to score a 5 year, $60 million+ deal, but the Mets refused to budge from their original 3/36 proposal.  Ultimately, it came down to the fact the the Perez market was extremely slow, and the Mets were essentially bidding against themselves. Honestly, I can't really argue with the signing.  While Perez is often erratic and frustrating, he is only 27 years old, he's a lefty, and he's shown the ability to pitch in big games.  And at $12 million, Perez is an absolute steal."

Who says that We're the Team to Beat isn't the funniest blog on the internet.  Fast forward to '10 and there are reports that two anonymous Mets players want Ollie out on the street.  Demoted, traded, whatever.  He can't start or relieve. He's useless.  And I couldn't enjoy it more.