Roy Halladay will throw out first pitch at Blue Jays Home Opener tonight

Credit: David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

This is old news by now, but what type of Blue Jays blog would we be if we didn’t at least make mention that the legendary Roy Halladay will throw out the first pitch at the Jays’ Home Opener tonight against the New York Yankees?

Doc announced the news on Twitter yesterday with this spectacular tweet. Someone commented that Doc is becoming a Twitter All-Star already and I would completely agree with that notion. His picture in a Dunedin Blue Jays uniform is the icing on the cake for me.

Halladay started 287 games for the Blue Jays and accrued 48.5 wins above replacement during his time in Toronto. He won the Cy Young award as the American League’s best pitcher in 2003 and that season he pitched an incredible 266 innings with a league-leading 6.38 K/BB rate, which was the first of five different seasons he would lead the AL in that category.

I could talk about Halladay’s numbers for days but he brought a lot more than just gaudy stats to the Blue Jays. During his time with Toronto the Jays never once made the playoffs, but for an eight-year stretch, we we were spoiled as fans by having the opportunity to watch him pitch every five days.

Halladay signed a one-day contract to retire with the Jays at the MLB Winter Meetings in December.

It should be interesting to see how many Halladay jerseys shuffle into the Rogers Centre tonight for the Blue Jays’ Home Opener. And if he throws an 88 MPH cutter as his first pitch I’m sure at least some of those people will be pining for his return to the game.

#DocTheBest