Roy Halladay had a very rough go of it yesterday in his start against the Twins down in Florida. The former Cy Young winner hasn't had his best stuff this spring and his velocity is reportedly down below 90 mph. Ken Rosenthal wrote about a pair of scouts who are "concerned" about the drop in his fastball velocity.
Halladay brushed it off as poor reporting.
From Jim Salisbury:
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“Yeah, I heard about that,” Halladay said, referring to a report that
seemed to wonder if the pitcher, like teammates Ryan Howard and Chase
Utley, might have a physical issue. “Poor reporting on the extreme end
of poor reporting. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
So, if his velocity is down as it appears to be, what does Roy think the issue is? Perhaps it's just tougher for the vet to get up for these spring games? More from Sully's story:
“I think it’s hard, the older you get and the more spring trainings
you’re around,” he said. “You can try and have as much intensity as you
can, but it’s just not the same. I think once you get closer and you’re
really not working on stuff and you’re trying to pitch, it’s a little
different level of competition. It’s all part of it. Would I like to be
throwing 98 right now? Yeah. That would be great. But I don’t expect
that’s going to happen.”
Much more from Halladay in the story here.
Are you the least bit worried about Roy Halladay yet? I'm not. Howard and Utley, for sure. But not Roy. At least not yet.