Halladay in heat

So here's what Cathal Kelly's Glasses posted about Halladay's performance in hot weather:

I'm not the man to take up the statisical/research challenge, but it would be interesting to measure Halladay's lifetime performance in reference to the heat when he pitches. Halladay flat out hates it hot. Last year, in a September start in Baltimore, the first line out of his mouth after the game was "I'm beginning to believe in that whole global warming thing."

The Baltimore start was his last of the season, a below average outing for Doc (but a fantastic outing for Victor Zambrano). Weather apparently 85 and cloudy.

And maybe I'm not the man either, but here's what I found. Using 2002-2007 as the range and counting all of Halladay's 173 starts in that six-year period, I would say Halladay is actually quite a bit better on hot days, given that he shows no significant decrease in results (whereas, to quote Jonathan Hale, "batters in weather under 50 degrees Fahrenheit average .249/.318/.410 while in a pleasant 81-85, they hit .297/.356/.468"). Seriously. There's no correlation whatsoever between his Game Score and the game time temperature.

But whatever. If Roy Halladay came up to me, the newly-appointed manager of the Blue Jays (I live in Boston*; that's why JP was here recently) and says, "Skip, I'm tired of this global warming thing. Give me an extra day off so I don't pitch in K.C.," Jesse Litsch would be on that mound so fast he wouldn't be pink and round anymore.

* I do not live in Boston.

Know your bragging rights

On the TSN broadcast yesterday, J.P. Ricciardi said (or Pat Tabler said to JP; can't remember) that the Jays had the most wins of anyone in the last two years without making the playoffs. And wouldn't you know it, he's right.

191 NYY (2 times made the playoffs)
183 DET (1)
183 LAA (1)
182 BOS (1)
175 MIN (1)
174 CLE (1)
170 TOR (0)
169 OAK (1)
166 SEA (0)
162 CHW (0)
...some losers

Don't know if that's impressive or who-cares-if-they-can-win-games-in-September-with-nothing-on-the-line. May is when they sucked last year, after all.

One of those guys also said something like "one of 9 teams with back-to-back winning seasons." There were five AL teams who did it (you know who they are, and who they aren't) as well as the Mets, Phillies, Dodgers, and Padres. Amusingly, every NL Central team above .500 in 2006 was below .500 in 2007.