SEATTLE -- Nobody expects more from Roy Halladay than Roy Halladay. Maybe that quest for perfection is why there was a slight smile playing at the edges of his mouth as he talked about his 2-0 victory here Monday night.
There was something truly special about the way Halladay dominated the Mariners and he almost allowed himself some brief moments of satisfaction.
Halladay limited Seattle to just four singles. Only one baserunner advanced past first base and when that happened, with runners at first and third in the seventh inning, Halladay reached back for something extra against young Jeff Clement and blew him away on three pitches.
"This was the best I've seen," catcher Rod Barajas said. "He was locating all his pitches, making precise in-game adjustments, keeping them off balance. Everything was knees and below and when we did elevate some pitches, it was by design.
"When he's able to be that precise with all his pitches, then he shows no pattern that the hitters can lock in on."
With six complete games in the bank now and an ERA sitting around 2.90, Halladay is as dialed-in as he has ever been. In his past 10 starts, he is 6-1 with 59 strikeouts against just nine walks and a 2.55 ERA.
Even at that, Halladay was irritated by his two previous starts, both team losses, even though he had pitched 13 innings and allowed only two earned runs.
"I just hadn't felt comfortable and we made some mechanical adjustments in between starts," he said. "When I started warming up (in Seattle), because of the things we had worked on between starts, I felt more collected whereas before I had that feeling I was going in three different directions. It's nice when you have that feeling in the bullpen and are then able to carry it out into the game."
Cito Gaston has been back as manager less than two weeks but he has followed Halladay's career from the start. Gaston played at a time when pitching staffs were four-man rotations and pitchers routinely threw complete games.
"Doc could be a horse in any era," Gaston said. "He's a Hall of Fame type pitcher and if he can stay healthy, I'm pretty sure he'll be there.
"He never stops. He's dedicated, works hard, he's a great student of the game. He's the type of guy you wish you had four or five of them on the team.
"Doc would pitch every day if he could. Those are the kinds of people you want on your ballclub."
Pitching has been the hallmark of the Blue Jays this year and that has not been more apparent than Sunday and Monday when the Jays scored a grand total of three runs in two games and won both of them because the pitching staff gave up nothing.
Halladay was in such a head space that he was able to defy convention in his approach to various hitters, making it impossible for them to discern a pattern in his approach.
"I sometimes get stuck in how I think we can get them out," Halladay said. "Rod and I talked and he did a great job of making me mix things up and sometimes go against the book. "It makes a big difference, especially when you start rolling the lineup over, showing them some different things."
The end result was a magnificent display of the art of pitching. And make no mistake, when a pitcher applies his craft as Halladay did that night, it is a form of art.
