It was the shootout at the Metrodome bandbox last night and Doc Halliday showed us once again why he is often at his best, exactly when he is not at his best.
The Blue Jays’ ace did not have his ‘A’ stuff by any means, but he persevered as he always does and he ended up winning.
You almost expected to see Doc pull a handkerchief out of his pocket and start hacking away like Victor Mature, who played that other Doc Holliday in John Ford’s classic 1946 picture My Darling Clementine.
Pitcher Halliday may not be dying of consumption but he does make the guys on the other team feel like they are in an old movie that has already been scripted. They know that when he’s pitching, everything won’t be OK for them.
Watching the good doctor work is an exercise in character study. He doesn’t want us to know how much he wants to beat every batter, but he just can’t help showing it.
He curses himself when he walks somebody, especially the guys at the bottom of the order as he did last night. And he sweats so hard that he always looks like he just stepped out of the sauna.
He’s a working man’s pitcher with a working man’s work ethic. He throws strikes. He used to have a 12-to-6 overhead curve ball that looked beautiful but was largely ineffective. He changed it. His new curve is low on aesthetic value and high on strikeouts.
Once upon a time, Halliday would do a long, slow burn on the mound when he didn’t get a close call from an umpire. That, needless to say, proved counter-productive.
The missed calls still bother him just as much, but he’s dropped the histrionics. He just wants the ball back — fast — so he can maybe get the next close pitch called his way.
He still has dynamite stuff sometimes but when he doesn’t, he isn’t about to spend all day nibbling at the corners. He has confidence in his team mates to field the ball. As a result, his games are quick and, quite often as crisp as one of those early fall days that particularly suit the game.
And man, is he competitive. You could see it in the National League parks. He wasn’t worried about looking graceful when he had to go to the plate to hit. He was trying to get a hit and he succeeded a couple of times.
In last night’s game, there was one play that especially typified Halliday. A left-handed hitter at the bottom of the Twins’ order looked at all of the sweat pouring off the forehead of the veteran pitcher and tried to drag a bunt past him.
Halliday sprang from the mound, running full-out and flagged down the ball near first base. He turned towards the base-runner as if he was taking his bunt attempt very personally. It looked like he was going to throw a cross-body block at him for a second before Halliday settled for slapping him hard with the tag.
In that one little play, you could see that see how much he wants to win every time he takes the field.
If you’re looking for a prescription for professionalism, you need look no further than the Doc.