Blue Jay ace Roy Halladay says that starting the final opener at Yankee Stadium will be a moment he’ll tell his kids about.
But he insists the Jays’ goal of winning the AL East isn’t about today, or even how they fare against the Yankees or Boston, but about their own attitude adjustment.
“There’s more expectation this year, and that should be the case,” said Halladay, 16-7 with a 3.71 ERA last year.
“We have to start out having that attitude that we’re going to be there [at the end]. We’re past the building process. We’re at the point where we need to start winning.”
To win big, win the AL East, they need to start taking every team seriously. They played the Bombers tough and went .500 vs. the eventual World Series champion Red Sox – the same as they went against cellar-dwellers Tampa and Texas.
“You’re not going to send a message in one game,” said Halladay, 10-4 with a 2.99 ERA vs. the Yanks.
“It’s about us playing [the Yanks] hard the entire season and playing everybody else hard. Obviously, every series against New York is important. We’ve known that and played that way in the past, but it’s got to be a season-long process.
“There were times last year where that escaped us. That was my biggest concern. We were playing teams we feel we should beat and we carried that attitude and expected them to hand it to us. That’s got to change.”
Halladay, one of the game’s best groundball pitchers, won 22 games in 2003 and pitched to a 2.41 ERA two years ago. He’s the ace of a staff they hope can keep them in contention – starting with today.