So Rare

Baseball's biggest change over the last 50 years is the greatly increased role for the bullpen and the gradual reduction in workload for starting pitchers. 

OK, this is not a shock. Still, when we find the occasional moments that underscore the change -- and how drastic it's become -- it's worth noting. 

In 1969, Tom Seaver won the NL Cy Young Award with a 25-7 record and 18 complete games out of his 35 starts. Even a losing team, such as the '69 Phillies, let their starters go as far as they could. Top winner Rick Wise won 15 games, with 14 complete games among his 31 starts. That year, the Phils went 63-99.

Fast forward to last Sunday, where Zach Eflin made headlines doing something common, and hardly noteworthy "back in the day." He threw a complete game, working all nine innings, using just 107 pitchers (an average of 12 per inning), as the Phillies beat the Marlins 5 - 1. 

That performance grabbed headlines -- because, amazingly, it was the club's first complete game in... get this... two-and-a-half years. The Phils had no nine-inning complete games at all in 2018. Or 2017. It had been 364 games, 19 months since Jeremy Hellickson worked all nine innings to earn a victory.

And can anyone honestly say, deploying pitching staffs this way is giving us better baseball?


Comments

Unknown said…
Pulling a pitcher after 6 or 7 innings is crazy. Let them pitch until they get in trouble or "Go the Distance", for the complete game win.
April 30, 2019 at 9:49 AM
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