How did Marcus Stroman’s outing rank against other Blue Jays returns?

1.  Roy Halladay – 2011

If you wanted to make a list of who the greatest Blue Jays player of all time, pitcher or position player, my argument would be either Roy Halladay or Dave Stieb.

Halladay, a former first-round pick back in 1995, climbed through the organization and made his Blue Jays debut in 1998.  In his second career start, he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning where it was broken up with just one out to go.  After struggling in 2000, Halladay was sent all the way back down to Single-A baseball where he had to reinvent himself, which helped him become one of the most dominating pitchers in the Major Leagues for the next decade.

Halladay would become the third Blue Jay pitcher to win the Cy Young Award when he took home the hardware in 2003 and was a five-time All-Star.

The Blue Jays have had several pitcher stars make memorable returns to Toronto, Roy Halladay was the only one to record a complete game.

After the 2009 season, Halladay had one-year remaining before he would become a free agent and he let management know that he was likely going to sign with a contending team. As such, the team traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies instead of losing him for nothing.

In 2010, Halladay faced the Blue Jays in Philadelphia where he collected the win after tossing seven scoreless innings.  The following year, the Blue Jays and Phillies played in Toronto in early July and Halladay received a standing ovation from the crowd when he took to the mound.

In typical Halladay fashion, the game was well under three hours and he gave his bullpen the day off.  Halladay had to put in a bit of work in the first inning as he surrendered both a walk and a single, requiring 21 pitches to get out of the inning, but dialled things in after that and needed just 16 pitches to get through the next two innings.

Toronto was able to score one run in the fourth (on a Jose Bautista home run) and scratched a couple more in the fifth, however, it was the Halladay show for the remainder of the game.  From the sixth inning on, Halladay retired 12 of the final 13 batters he faced with just a two-out John McDonald seventh inning single being the only blemish.  Halladay required only 110 pitches to pitch a complete game and improved his record to 11-3 on the season which help lead him towards his second career Cy Young Award.

Pitching Line: 9IP | 8H | 3R | 3ER | 1B |8K | 1HR