Roy Halladay Returns, Arm Doesn’t Fall Off

Roy Halladay returned to a major league mound yesterday for the first time since May, leading the Phils to a 9-5 win over the Diamondbacks. He pitched reasonably well, allowing two runs over six innings with the help of some timely defense. He is also–for now–defying expectations. Here was me, a few months ago, quoting some terrifying stats:

“Players over the age of 35 that went on the DL for any sort of shoulder injury only averaged 59 innings over the course of the rest of their career.” It gets worse. 32 of the 62 pitchers never pitched again. Only 6 ever pitched more than 100 innings again, and one of them was Tim Wakefield, a knuckleballer.

So either Roy has about 53 innings left in his career, or he’s going to add another chapter to the post-shoulder surgery history books. That said–I still don’t understand the rationale for bringing him back right now for a few meaningless starts (see: Mark Sanchez, Rex Ryan, debacle). If he re-injures himself, you look dumb. And if he pitches well, it costs more to resign him next year. [Inquirer]