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Did Halladay's groin strain make a difference?
by Scott Butler 10/22/10

We all know by now that Roy Halladay suffered a mild right groin strain in the second inning of his Game 5 outing in the NLCS, but it was a mystery to most fans and players until we were told after the game.

If Halladay fooled most of us about his injury, how much of an effect did it have on Doc?

To answer that question, the baseball geek inside of me decided to look at every single pitch to discover what patterns may emerge. Through my investigation, the evidence is clear that Halladay was hurt in the second inning just as the Phillies told us.

The most incriminating evidence surfaced by examining Halladay's velocity. There was a clear drop-off in velocity immediately after pitch #32. On that particular pitch, Halladay threw a changeup for a ball to Sandoval with one out in the second. Other than the fact it was the ninth pitch of the at-bat, there was nothing peculiar about the pitch. Nevertheless, I would bet something happened on that exact pitch.

As you can clearly see by the chart below, Halladay's velocity on all of his pitches dropped over 3 mph on average after pitch 32. When every single pitch drops the same amount, there is certainly something going on.

Pitch Type	Through 1st 32 Pitches		After 1st 32 Pitches
	# Pitches	Avg. Speed	# Pitches	Avg. Speed	Difference
Fastball	7	93.429	11	90	3.429
Cutter	14	91.143	35	88.727	2.416
Curveball	6	79.667	17	76.353	3.314
Changeup	5	85.8	13	82.214	3.586
Total	32	87.51	76	84.323	3.187

The injury didn't seem to change Halladay's pitch selection much. I thought he threw significantly more curveballs in this outing, but it probably just seemed that way because it was much slower and obvious when he through it. Here is Halladay's pitch selection before and after the injury.

Through first 32 pitches:

Fastballs - 7 (22%)
Cutters - 14 (44%)
Curveballs - 6 (19%)
Changeups - 5 (16%)

After first 32 pitches:

Fastballs - 11 (14%)
Cutters - 35 (46%)
Curveballs - 17 (22%)
Changeups - 13 (17%)

The injury also did not seem to play a major role in the types of outs, either. His breakdown of 6 groundouts, 6 fly outs, and 5 strikeouts seems normal.

They type of strikes shows that the Giants weren't swinging and missing as much as normal. He had a total of 7 swinging strikes against. That is a particularly low number, especially when considering he had 19 swinging strikes in the no-hitter. Those figures may not indicate injury, but they are intriguing, nonetheless.

Halladay's Strike Types

Thursday's game:
23 Looking
7 Swinging
25 Fouls

No-hitter:
22 Looking
19 Swinging
19 Fouls

What does this mean about Halladay's future?

As long as he is still able to pitch, Halladay should still be more than able to dominate if he gets another game. Halladay's success is based on control and movement, so a drop in speed should not affect Halladay as much as most other pitchers.

Hopefully the Phillies win the next two and give us a chance to find out for ourselves.


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Did Halladay's groin strain make a difference? by Scott Butler 10/22/10

Through first 32 pitches:

After first 32 pitches:

Halladay's Strike Types

Did Halladay's groin strain make a difference?
by Scott Butler 10/22/10