MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Exactly.

As Abreu came out for the seventh, it suddenly occurred to me that I'll probably never see another "real" no-hitter in MLB in my lifetime. And I feel a sense of loss about that.

 

Reid Detmers threw one in May.

 

Well, if you’re going to watch your team lose in a World Series game, make it a historic loss.

 

Actually, I didn't know that, and good catch. I legitimately wonder if that will be the last one, though. This managerial move isn't even raising an eyebrow anymore, and baseball people have become ultra-sensitive about pitch counts.

Somebody might need to come in under 85 pitches to get the shot at it.

 

At this point, I'm surprised when I see a pitcher even get a shot at a complete game. I think there were only four pitchers in the majors who had more than one complete game this season.

 

IIRC, there were a handful of guys this season who took no hitters deep into games then were pulled as soon as they gave up a hit.

And just as many guys were pulled with no hitters intact, including Kershaw with a perfect game through seven in his first start.

 

That first citation has been common practice since I was a kid. The Kershaw game stirred up quite a ruckus, if I remember, although he was not part of it.

 

True on the first point. I was trying to point out that not all pitchers are automatically pulled due to pitch counts.

The Dodgers Tyler Anderson took a no-hitter into the ninth against the Angels then a play ruled an error earlier in the game was changed to a hit. If it was ruled that immediately, he probably would have been pulled then and not pitched a couple extra innings.

 

The Dodgers' Tyler Anderson took a no-hitter into the ninth inning in June against the Angels and they gave him a shot at it, even though I think he passed the 100-pitch mark in the eighth inning. He wound up throwing 123 pitches in 8 1/3.

With the one last night, Javier was at 97 pitches through six innings. It might have taken him 150 to finish it. It's not like they yanked him needing to push through for 10-15 more pitches and three more outs. I'm much more forgiving because of that, as well as the situation. The Astros were facing a lineup that has shown it can turn a game around in a hurry, and this was as close to an elimination game as you could get without it being an elimination game. If it's a ho-hum game in July or August maybe you leave him out there to see if he can get a quick inning and make a run at it. In Game 4 of the World Series, when you're down 2-1, you don't screw around.

 

Yeah, there have been lots of predictable takes about combined no-hitters, but I think everyone put it in proper perspective. Excellent, yes, historic, yes, but if you lose the series, it's just a big-ass footnote.

It's worth noting that part of what made Don Larsen's achievement so incredible was that his perfect game was only the fourth that had ever been pitched AT ALL and the first in 34 years. No-hitters, though not exactly commonplace (I saw one live in 2019!) are a little less freakish. Last night's was the 273rd of the World Series (1903-present) era. There have been 21 perfect games, six of them from a period between 2009-12 but none since then.

One thing I'd love to know is the exact total of postseason games that have been played between 1903 and the present and compare the rate of these sorts of Extremely Special Pitching Performances against the regular-season rate. I assume, because there are a lot fewer shitty pitchers in circulation this time of year that the rate is much more frequent, but how?

 

All that analyzing, and they land on the magic number of 100 pitches. You’d think with all the number crunching, they would come up with a more exact number. And shouldn’t every guy’s pitch count magic number be different? Shouldn’t it depend on the amount of pitches per inning rather than per game? Throwing 100 pitches in six innings is way different than throwing 100 pitches an eight innings. And throwing 100 fastballs is way different than throwing 100 sliders. Yet they just dump the guys out after 100 pitches every game. Every single guy. No matter what they throw or when they throw it.

And this is been going on long enough now that guys are more mentally conditioned to be unable to throw more than 100 than lack of physically conditioned. They just believe their arms will fall off if they throw a 101st pitch.

 

Who says the magic number is a 100? It is different for all pitchers. A lot of it is not going through the lineup for the 3rd time.