WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. April 19, 2008: Last Friday night, the Yankees Chien-Ming Wang started a ball game at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox. Nine innings later, Mr. Wang walked off the mound having shut out Boston, 2-0, with a complete game shut out. Do you believe it?
Do you realize how rare an achievement this is? Well take it from me it is.
The Big Ball Park in The Bronx. 1950s. When it was Yankee Stadium.
FLASH! Yankee Pitcher Pitches a Complete Game.
WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. April 19, 2008: Last Friday night, the Yankees Chien-Ming Wang started a ball game at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox. Nine innings later, Mr. Wang walked off the mound having shut out Boston, 2-0, with a complete game shut out.
Do you believe it?
Do you realize how rare an achievement this is? Well take it from me it is.
For you see through 162 games last season, the New York Yankee pitching staff only managed one complete game. Think of it: only one Yankee pitcher the entire season pitched a complete game.
Now for you young whipper snappers out there, you may be wondering what is a complete game?
A complete game is a game where a starting pitcher throws every pitch in the game for his team, and walks off the mound in the last inning, whether he is the winner or losing pitcher.
The complete game in today’s school of mediocre pitching coach management is a lost art form. Mr. Wang was also the only Bomber pitcher to pitch a complete game in 2007.
Why do pitching staffs fall apart today, and pitching collapse into disarray? It is because not enough complete games are thrown in the major leagues.
Why is that? Because sometime thirty-five years ago in the 1970s, Sparky Anderson of the Cincinnati Reds, and to a lesser extent Tony La Russa of the Chicago White Sox and Oakland A’s developed the art of the middle reliefman and the closer. These two managers separated the roll of the fireman, who used to come into ballgames in the seventh inning – usually the last of the seventh or even the eighth to finish a game, who was the big specialist of the time – and created the “holder,” the middle relief man who could hold a lead.
Anderson was mocked at the time for not having a pitching staff when he managed the Big Red Machine. He had no big time stud pitchers, instead he would pitch four or five good starters for 5 or 6 innings then go lefty-righty matchups from the sixth inning on. After he won championships this way in 1975 and 1976 defeating superior pitching staffs of the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, it became the way to do it.
Starters pitched less and less innings in the 80s and 90s. The Atlanta Braves were a throwback, relying on a strong starting four who often pitched into the seventh: The Smoltzes, the Niekros, the Madduxes, with one fireman finishing off the game.
There also developed a kind of an account executive pitching coach who defined pitching by the numbers. As the great pitching coaches of old left the game: the Johnny Sains, the Jim Turners, the Whitlow Wyatts, the account executive pitching coach arrived. Most of the account executive pitching coaches were characterized by their lack of success as pitchers in the major leagues, most of whom were used in middle relief, when middle relief was the worst tag you could have in the major leagues.
A middle reliever when I was growing up was a Gene Brabender, a Paul LaPalme, a Joe Nuxhall, He was usually used in a blowup, and middle reliever was a nice name. Usually among fans we called him the mop-up man, who saved good pitchers arms in a game hopelessly out of reach. Rare was the time when a major league team trailing 7-2 or 6-1 or 9-2 in the middle innings could come back, because the starting pitching was so good in the 50s and 60s.
Usually the fireman came into the game when Spahnie or Whitey, Juan or Sandy was absolutely out of gas in the eighth or ninth. Casey would wave for Bob Grim or Ryne Duren or Luis Arroyo who’d come in with men on base and the big boppers coming up. Their job was to throw a strikeout or a ground ball. Often they did. They put out the fire.
However, gone is the role of the fireman in today’s game.
Wang’s performance Friday was a masterpiece against the most powerful lineup in baseball. He handcuffed the Saux and threw a 2-0 shutout.
In contrast to that game, you had the New York Mets agonizing Sunday afternoon 9 inning 4 hour game against the Brewers. The Mets starter could not get people out. The Mets relievers rushed into the breach coughed up a 6-2 lead, with Milwaukee winning 9-7.
What is going on here?
I have a theory. The pitchers of today do not have enough experience pitching out of jams, because they are relieved through the minor league careers. As soon as their pitch count is reached, out they go. They are coddled by pitching counts.
Warren Spahn, the great Milwaukee southpaw interviewed by Roger Kahn in The Head Game in 2000 had this to say about pitchers today:
“I don’t think pitchers throw enough today. They go once a week. They pitch five innings. They don’t throw batting practice between starts. We’re in an era preoccupied with jogging, getting your heart rate up, weight lifting. I think a lot of players lift and run instead of doing what’s necessary to stay in pitching shape. Throw and throw. I’d pitch a game and the following day pitch batting practice, fifteen minutes for stamina. The next day I’d run some in the outfield. Day after that I was ready for another start.
Kids today seem bigger, with longer fingers, and they like the split-fingered fast ball, a sinking pitch. I’m afraid the curve ball is being neglected. A pitcher with a fine curve, Carl Erskine ( the Dodgers, 1950s) would have wonderful success right now.”
When I see game after poorly pitched game…when I hear commentators talk about six innings being a quality start…it drives me crazy. Then the “quality start” is followed by a “holder” who often puts a couple of batters on and coughs up a run or two. The holder is usually chosen on basis of whether he is left handed or right-handed to “match up” with what side of the plate batters are coming up to hit on. The manager is playing the percentage here. But, but, but – pitchers rarely come into a game with their best stuff (closers excluded). Hence you have the lack of control leading to walks, pitches a little too up and boom-boom, the lead is gone. This happens a lot.
So out to the bullpen they go for a righthander, once the left-hand hitters have been walked on or hit their way on and the syndrome continues.
By June, the bullpens are depleted by this over usage. Sorearms happen and new arms are rushed up from the minor leagues and the pitching gets worse.
Sometimes the new arms come into the league and the hitters do not know them. The Yankees got away with this last year with their young pitchers’s success. So far this season the young pitchers are not doing so well. The book is in on them.
And another thing: as Spahnie said in his interview with Mr. Kahn, “Something else. Attitude. How I loved to pitch. Whenever they gave me the ball and it was my turn, I always had the same thought. This is my day in the sun.”
Today’s pitchers with the exception of proven starters (albeit many of whom are 6 inning pitchers): the Becketts, the Santanas may have the ability to pitch out of trouble, but their managers rarely give them a chance from the fifth inning on. I do not know how you teach that without allowing them innings – a lot more than 5.
On the other hand, major league baseball by shrinking the strike zone is killing pitchers. To get a strike today the pitcher has to throw it right down the middle below the belt. They do not get the high strike called. This is where the great pitchers lived fifty years ago. The change at the letters. The screwball. The big hook curve. And they could pitch inside. Head music made the outside pitch sing.
Spahnie during the last half of his career never pitched high and he was winning without a fastball. How? By pitching in the lower half of the strike zone (which in his day was letters to knees, not belt to knees):
Spahnie recalls in 1961, after beating the Cubs 2-1: “I ignore the upper half of the strike zone. These days I throw only below the waist. Of course if a batter has a profound weakness – say he can’t hit a high inside fastball – I’ll still throw to that spot. But a batter with a profound weakness doesn’t last in the major leagues.”
Warren Spahn won 363 games in the major leagues. He started 665 games, and pitched 382 Complete Games in a career from 1946 to 1965.
By contrast, Johan Santana, the most sought-after starter in the free agent sweepstakes has won 93 major league ball games in 8 years, starting 175 games he is on a pace to match Spahnie in starts, however Johan has pitched only 6 complete games. He threw only one complete game in 2007 in 33 starts.
But as Rich Rodriguez the Michigan football coach says, “It does not matter. It’s in the past.”
Meanwhile we have baseball’s miserable pitching coaches glorifying the inept middle reliefers – by awarding holds to pitchers who come in a game, put runners on, but do not give up runs when their reliever induces double plays or lucky catch line drives to save their bacon.
Can the soft underbellies of today’s major league bullpens be taught to throw strikes in good spots? I see no pitching coaching in the major leagues. These pitchers come up and cannot throw strikes in big spots that can get hitters out. Where is the coaching in the minor leagues? They also are not good fielders, either.
But it goes back to the way starting pitchers are used today. Ninety pitches and out. Are you kidding me? Fastpitch softball pitchers routinely throw 120 pitches in a tough game, twice a week. If pitching counts strengthen arms, I have not seen it. I cannot remember a time when starting pitchers have been so fragile, can you?
More conditioning, more throwing, and some coaching from pitchers who have won twenty games in the majors would get pitching turned around in the right direction.
Forgive me, but I must digress and talk about the terrible outfield play in the major leagues.
I have seen far too many outfielders today who do not hit the cutoff man. Johnny Damon, the inept Yankee centerfielder does this all the time. His weak arm costs the Yankees games, especially in Yankee Stadium, which is why Melky Cabrera plays in the Stadium. Cabrera is finally giving the Yankees strong outfield play.
But a lot of outfielders do not hit the cutoff man. They throw loopers to the plate offline. Throw ahead of the runner allowing the trailing runner to take the extra base.
The fundamentals of outfield play are not being drummed in in the minor leagues today, this is the only answer I can think of for the unintelligent outfield play I see demonstrated on a nightly basis.
And another thing: Do you think the major league scheduler has ever looked at what the weather is like in the Middlewest and north east in the first weeks of April?
I do not think so. By scheduling openers in the north of the country at undomed stadia, when the Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox, Indians, Twins, Cardinals and Chigos have to play in 40 degree weather at night, we are seeing a rash of pulled hamstrings, hurt arms and what have you.
It is just braindead having openers in the northeast the first two weeks of April. You have teams in California, Arizona, Georgia, Seattle, Toronto, Florida, Texas, where the weather can be nicer. Do they use those sites – not as much as they should. I’d have opened the Red Sox, Mets and Yankees on the West Coast or in Minnesota or Canada and bring the Metropolitans and the Bombers into New York just about now – when opening days in New York used to happen.
That’s the view from the upper deck…
This is Bull Allen, saying so long, everybody.
