It took Johan Santana a few seasons to get his feet wet as a young lefty starting off in the Twins’ pitching staff, but by his fourth year on the hill in 2003, he was dominating batters and establishing himself as a premier big league hurler.
Across the border in Toronto, a tall righty by the name of Roy Halladay was in the midst of a 22-win 2003 season for the Blue Jays, bagging the AL’s Cy Young Award in the process.
Halladay made himself known a season earlier when he notched a 19-7 record and a 2.93 ERA in his first full season as a starter for the Jays.
The summer of 2003 was a magical time for both of these aces, but the summer of 2004 belonged to Santana, who swiped the AL Cy Young Award from the reigning title-holder Halladay thanks to a 20-6 record and a 2.61 ERA.
After a 16-7 season in 2005, Santana would edge Halladay (who took third place) and New York’s Chien-Ming Wang (second place) for his second Cy Young award in three years. He would post a 15-13 record in his final season with the Twins before fleeing to the NL to join the Mets in 2008. Meanwhile, Halladay continued his AL dominance as he went 81-37 with a 3.01 ERA from 2005-2009 before taking off for the City of Brotherly Love to join the Phillies rotation.
Leading up to Sunday’s contest, Halladay is 6-2 with a 1.64 ERA while Santana is just 3-2 with a 3.72 ERA this year.
So far, Halladay has run away with the scoring as of 5:30 p.m. He has 84 percent of the vote while Santana is responsible for the remaining 16 percent.
It’s not too late to vote, as Mel in Springfield wants to know: Who’s the best former AL ace now pitching in the NL? Text “SOX1” to 542542 for Halladay or text “SOX2” to 542542 for Santana.
