Yesterday
while watching the most over produced show on TV, AKA Sportscenter,I saw the Phillies
had 4 pitchers combine to throw a no-hitter. A no-hitter isn’t a common occurrence, even
more uncommon is a collection of pitchers pulling one off. Usually when a guy has
a no hitter going he keeps throwing until he either finishes it off or
self-destructs. There was mention of the starter reaching 108 in his pitch
count so they had to pull him, though I think issuing walks to everyone but the
hot dog vendor was an additional concern. The mention of the pitch count got me
to thinking and though I don’t follow baseball much and haven’t for a good
while, when I hear talk about pitchers the subject of pitch count always seems
to worm its way in to the conversation. My question is, if so many pitchers now
playing in the majors are closely monitored for pitch count why are so many
blowing their arms out in a relatively short period of time? I look at talented guys like Kerry Wood,
Brandon Webb, and Mark Pryor and wonder how come these guys burned so bright
and then got hurt and faded away? With
all the science involved in pitching anymore why hasn’t it improved pitchers
ability to keep their arm intact and pitch at a high level for a long time? So,
okay that’s three questions, math challenged at the moment I guess. With daily occurrences like the quick hook in
yesterday’s no hitter it is no wonder the complete game has almost disappeared from
the stats book. Last season two pitchers tied for the most with 4. Four. Only twice
in the last 15 years has the major league leader hit double digits in complete
games, James Shields in 2011 and Randy Johnson in 1999. It has almost become a self-fulfilling
prophecy for arm trouble by focusing so much on preventing it happening. The
complete game has slowly been disappearing from the game over the last several
decades and though it is not a great measurement of a pitcher’s ability, it makes
the obsession with pitch count all the more baffling.
As these
questions were bouncing around the playground that is my mind I decided to do some
investigating on when complete games for pitchers started to became a
disappearing statistic. The numbers have
dwindled year after year since the early 80’s, with last pitcher to hit twenty in 1986
being Fernando Valenzuela and 15 has only been reached 4 times since then. Pulling up the list of the all-time leaders I
noticed it is top heavy with players from the pre-World War I era. There are
only 2 pitchers, Robin Roberts and Gaylord Perry that pitched after 1965 in the
top 50. The leader is Cy Young, the guy the award is named for, with 749, the
current active leader, CC Sabathia, at his current seasonal average would have
to pitch 283 more seasons to catch Cy. I’m going out on a limb and guessing Cy's
record is pretty safe. Granted the game
was different in those days, though it still doesn’t explain how 100 years ago
a pitcher could start 35-40 games a year and complete 80-90% of them and keep
doing it year after year. They sure didn’t have all the off season workouts, strength
training and other performance sciences developed that we see now. How did
those guys manage to have such seemingly tireless arms? Did they pitch drunk
everyday so they never felt their arm get tired? I have no idea, do you? I sure
didn’t expect to be writing about baseball today. I guess it’s just another of
those questions I started with and fell through the hole in the paper.
