Year of the Pitcher?

I've missed you all. Work, theater, and the flu have kept me away too long. And while I'm making excuses for things, I'm still having a difficult time getting artwork for each and every blog, so you might not see any images attached for a while. But my hope is that you haven't stuck around purely for the pictures. But enough of that, let's get down to some things I have missed.
Let's start with one issue that was on the front burner for a while. One day a week or two ago, Hanley Ramirez, shortstop for the Florida Marlins, fouled a ball off of his foot early in the game. Later in that same game, he misplayed a ball that then rolled into the outfield. He then proceeded to slowly jog after it. Now, you're supposed to play 100% on every play, and while that's nearly impossible to do for everyone who isn't Pete Rose, Hanley cleared didn't even did it 50%. This was a disgrace to baseball. And then to further embarrass himself, Hanley's only defense after being benched by manager Fredi Gonzalez, was to call out his coach for having never played in the majors, and thus not understanding the situation. This topic lit up the call-boards for radio talk shows for a few days. It didn't finally get resolved though, until Andre "Hawk" Dawson and Tony Perez, both Hall of Famers, special assistants to Marlins team president, and general awesome dudes, laid the smack down on Hanley. They told him how it is, and how it was going to be, and to apologize and play the game right. Hanley quickly made amends. Issue over. Know your role young punk.
Three other remarkable things happened while I was away, and they all occurred on the same day. On Saturday, Kendry Morales of the Los Angeles Angels hit a walk-off grand slam. Awesome. But, while coming home to get his proper congratulations, Kendry was bitten by the back-luck bug, and fractured his leg upon landing on home plate. Not awesome. This is an odd occurrence that I've never heard of, let alone seen before. And it's a shame, because Morales was having a great season so far, hitting .290, with 11 homers, and 39 RBIs to lead his team in all three categories. Surgery is scheduled but can not be performed before the swelling goes down, meaning the vast majority of the season is now gone for Morales. Perhaps a September return will happen, but it doesn't look too bright as of now. The Angels may not be taking the division as I had predicted after all.
Unfortunately another injury was big news on Saturday. Cleveland Indians Pitcher David Huff was struck in the head by a line drive from Alex Rodriguez. I just recently watched the video and it's a hard thing to watch. The ball hit Huff so hard, that the ball actually bounced into right field. A stretcher was called out and Huff remained on the ground for about six minutes. He never loss consciousness though, which is a great sign. It makes you realize that the game isn't as important as one person's life, and really puts things like homeruns, money, and fame into their proper perspective. Best wishes for a quick recovery David Huff.
The positive news story that happened this past Saturday was yet another perfect game being thrown. That's only, what, two in the past month?! There have never been two perfect games thrown in one season before. And if you count Mark Buehrle's from last season, that's three in less than one full year of baseball. This most recent gem was hurled by new-Phillies ace Roy Halladay. Doc was lights out with his breaking hard stuff on Saturday, striking out 11 to defeat the Florida Marlins 1-0. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 33-year-old's performance was that after the final pitch, he just smiled, and awaited his hugging teammates. Always a rock, Halladay showed tempered emotion in perhaps the finest hour of his Hall of Fame-worthy career.
It is just amazing to have this kind of constant success from pitchers. Which begs the question, is this the year of the pitcher? It's not just one or two guys that's rocking the baseball world. It's everybody. Mark Buehrle last year, Ubaldo Jimenez's no-hitter early this year, and his stellar 2010 season thus far. Dallas Braden's perfect game, and now Halladay's too. But there have been tons of shutouts too. On Saturday alone, there were four. I saw that someone had pitched a perfect game, but I had to wait to see who, because there were so many scores scrolling by that could have been the culprit. Even the Philadelphia Phillies, a tremendous offense juggernaut, were the victims of three shutouts before Halladay's perfection, and Sunday they were shutout again.
There are 28 guys in both leagues that have an ERA of 3.00 or under currently. That's a very high number. And these are star pitchers, not lucky-break wonders. And they are young and old. David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays is 7-2 with a 2.57 ERA. Adam Wainwright is 7-3 with a 2.28 ERA and 77 Ks! Even look at Houston Astro Roy Oswalt who is 3-6, but has had a lot of hard-luck losses. He has an ERA of 2.35 and a strikeout-per-inning-pitched. He just has no offense behind him. Or Matt Cain of the S.F. Giants, who should be 6-1, but because he gets no run support behind his 2.50 ERA, he's 3-4 instead.
There is dominant pitching going on right now in the majors. Pitchers certainly are getting taller and stronger, as is the case with just about every San Diego hurler today, N.Y. Met Mike Pelfrey at 6'7", or Tamp Bay Ray Jeff Neimann, who is 6'9" for crying out loud! Maybe it's that hitters are finally off the steroids, and can't hit the ball with as much power or effectiveness as before. There are still some insanely good hitters to be sure, but now that the mediocre have returned to being mediocre, perhaps pitching is finally taking over again. Not since 1968 has pitching been highlighted like this before. I love it, and I hope it continues. Strikeouts might not be as sexy as homeruns, but it's still damn good baseball.
Question: Can you name the other Philadelphia Phillies pitcher who threw a perfect game? Extra points if you know what year it was too.