Twenty-Three (and seven-ninths)

April 15, 2022 6:19 AM

Clayton Kershaw was six outs away from pitching the first perfect game in nearly a decade on Wednesday afternoon vs. the Twins. But, after seven innings, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided to pull the All-Star pitcher based on his pitch count.
posted by Etrigan (54 comments total)

Honestly, I don't know how Kershaw feels about this, but as a management call this is absolutely the right one. Your players' health trumps a fun stat. Always, in my opinion, but in the first week of the season? C'mon.
posted by the primroses were over at 6:23 AM on April 15, 2022 [8 favorites]

Dodgers fan and baseball reporter Molly Knight on the decision.
posted by the primroses were over at 6:33 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

A player who has an injury so bad at the end of last year that, despite being one of the best living pitchers, he only got two contract offers, looked great and healthy. His team, who is short on starting pitching and owes this man and his semi-fragile arm a ton of money and needs him badly, had a seven run lead. Spring training was shorter than normal and he had not yet thrown as many as 60 pitches in an outing. He had thrown 80 that day.

Anyone with even a casual understanding of pitcher health and the value of personal achievements as outweighed by the value of team productivity understands this decision.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:54 AM on April 15, 2022 [17 favorites]

In a semi-related story, via the flailing undead corpse of Deadspin, Gabe Kapler has also had enough of "the unwritten rules":

The Padres... took issue with a bunt single by Giants’ utility man Mauricio Dubón in the sixth inning with San Francisco up nine runs. ...Giants’ manager Gabe Kapler was asked about it after the game, and his response was essentially, I’m here to not only beat teams but to grind pitching staffs down to dirt so that, by the final game of a series, they need to fill innings with infielders.

“Our goal is not exclusively to win one game in a series. It’s to try to win the entire series. Sometimes, that means trying to get a little deeper into the opposition’s ‘pen. I understand that many teams don’t love that strategy. And I get why. It’s something that we talked about as a club before the season and that we were comfortable going forward with that strategy. It’s not to be disrespectful in any way. It’s because we feel very cool and strategic. It’s the best way to win a series. When I say cool, I mean calm. We’re not emotional about it. We’re not trying to hurt anybody.”

Before you say “Yeah, but… ” remember who you’re dealing with here. Kapler is the reigning NL Manager of the Year. His team won 107 games in 2021, a year in which Vegas set their preseason over/under win total at 73. He’s comfortable with the strategy, and the Padres may disagree with Kapler’s “I don’t give a fuck, I’ll rob my mom to win a regular season series” approach, but he’s “comfortable” with it. He may not think it’s “cool” in the context of how he said it, but I do.

posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:00 AM on April 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yep. Kershaw is already a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. Bummer that it would've been his first ever perfecto, but Dave Roberts, unfortunately, made the right call here.

Your players' health trumps a fun stat.

For certain pitchers, a perfect game could mean a larger contract starting next season or even another bullet point for his candidacy for the Hall of Fame. But yeah, not in this case. A perfect game would only be a cherry on top of Kershaw's career.
posted by NoMich at 7:01 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Kershaw was happy with the decision (or at least choosing to be publicly happy with the decision).

I'm a fan of completing games and pitchers' duels and everything else (and I think a lot of MLB's issues with pace of play and the three true outcomes could be resolved with a roster limit on pitchers rather than limiting the shift), but seriously, it's April. Would Kershaw rather have a perfect game on his record or lead his team back to the NLCS (where, God willing, they will be crushed by the Mets in four)?
posted by thecaddy at 7:08 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

the score at the time was 3-0 - it's not a bad lead, but it's not a big enough lead to gamble - (why didn't the linked articles mention this fact as it's very relevant?) - also the night was pretty chilly and would be tougher on a pitcher

the goal is to win the game and keep your players intact for the season - they had 157 games to go that night

the odds that he'd retain perfection over the next 2 innings were pretty low

it's too early and the circumstances weren't good enough to gamble on your pitcher's health like that
posted by pyramid termite at 7:17 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

The best response regarding the Giants/Padres flap is that a team who’s way ahead should only agree to stop trying to score runs if the underdog agrees to stop trying to come back.

No amount of a lead is safe in a game without a clock.
posted by hwyengr at 7:17 AM on April 15, 2022 [22 favorites]

hwyengr, that is nearly exactly what former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said in 1986, ironically, after objections from the Giants: “If he wants us to stop running, he can send over a note promising to stop trying to hit home runs.”
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:33 AM on April 15, 2022 [10 favorites]

On the scale of dumb outrageous bullshit which unthinkingly sacrifices the fan experience and spirit of the game in favor of ice-cold managerial calculus, this ranks about 3% of the NL adopting the DH rule.
posted by 7segment at 7:45 AM on April 15, 2022 [7 favorites]

I think people who complain about the DH in the NL should be strapped to a chair with their eyelids forced open a la Clockwork Orange and forced to watch fifteen hours of footage of pitchers hitting. Then, after a short break to vomit out the entire contents of their digestive system, they should be strapped in and forced to watch five hours of pitchers getting hurt running the bases. I'm an NL fan and I will tell you it's just awful to behold.

Making pitchers hit, decades after they stopped hitting in most colleges or the minors would be like bosses making us do half of our office work in handwritten cursive, decades after people stopped teaching that or asking for that.

Cursive is nice. Pitchers hitting was cool. But that's gone now. Been gone. No reason to waste time, slow everything down, or make everyone miserable for a sentiment somewhere between nostalgia and being reactionary.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:57 AM on April 15, 2022 [11 favorites]

(I sound cranky, but I'm smiling. Yay! A baseball thread on MeFi! Nice to see you all.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 AM on April 15, 2022 [24 favorites]

I wonder if there is space for some sort of large-scale semi-pro baseball league (or more likely, federation of many small leagues) with a more "classic baseball" ruleset and play mentality. Something where the focus was the single game, not the championship. We used to go watch Boston Park League games when I was a kid (and in Googling to double check the name of the league, I am slightly stunned to find it still exists) and it was mostly about watching a game, not worrying how many games Triple D's was behind Mass. Envelope. College summer leagues are popular in some locations. Especially given MLB's recent reduction in the minor leagues, I bet "locally grown, farm-to-homeplate, all-natural" baseball could become a thing.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:19 AM on April 15, 2022

That this has sparked a debate reminds me how little I understand the appeal of baseball.
posted by Flexagon at 8:23 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Spring training was shorter than normal and he had not yet thrown as many as 60 pitches in an outing. He had thrown 80 that day.

This is the key factor that a lot of people seemed to be ignoring. Pretty much every starting pitcher in baseball has been on a short pitch count so far, because without a full spring training they haven't been able to build up the endurance they'd usually have for the start of a season. And when you throw past what your arm is conditioned for, bad things happen even if your shoulder isn't held together with scotch tape.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:25 AM on April 15, 2022 [9 favorites]

Logging in just to reply to this:

I think people who complain about the DH in the NL should be strapped to a chair with their eyelids forced open a la Clockwork Orange and forced to watch fifteen hours of footage of pitchers hitting. Then, after a short break to vomit out the entire contents of their digestive system, they should be strapped in and forced to watch five hours of pitchers getting hurt running the bases. I'm an NL fan and I will tell you it's just awful to behold.

Making pitchers hit, decades after they stopped hitting in most colleges or the minors would be like bosses making us do half of our office work in handwritten cursive, decades after people stopped teaching that or asking for that.

Cursive is nice. Pitchers hitting was cool. But that's gone now. Been gone. No reason to waste time, slow everything down, or make everyone miserable for a sentiment somewhere between nostalgia and being reactionary.

Strap me in, I guess. I like watching pitchers hit. I like watching pitchers play the fucking game. Partly, I like it for the same reason that people sometimes say, "I wish we could see ordinary people try the things the Olympians are doing just so we could better appreciate the ability of the best athletes." Partly because baseball isn't supposed to be easy or comfortable or always explosive to watch. I want baseball to waste time and slow everything down. If we really want to spare pitcher injuries and speed up the game and make it more explosive and high-scoring, why not replace pitchers entirely with batting machines? Or set up tees or do slow-pitch softball. It wouldn't be baseball, right? It wouldn't be compelling. I feel the same way about the fucking DH. That the NL adopted the DH makes me seethingly angry. So angry that I don't expect I'll ever go to another baseball game again. Or watch one or listen to one on the radio.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 8:35 AM on April 15, 2022 [29 favorites]

On the scale of dumb outrageous bullshit which unthinkingly sacrifices the fan experience and spirit of the game in favor of ice-cold managerial calculus

I, for one, am tired of people making this artificial distinction. Some of us like analysis and optimization. Some of us like seeing how professionals eke out an advantage or make subtle plays that show smart play rather than overpowering bombast.

I honestly don't like basketball very much because it's so tilted toward the offense, and if people get "bored" of games like soccer and hockey because they're low-scoring and can end in ties, that's on them. It doesn't mean that the "fan experience" is less.

People complain that baseball is slow and full of pauses, even as football remains the most popular sport in the US and is defined by its pauses, its resets, and a play clock to force players to play the game.
posted by explosion at 8:35 AM on April 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

explosion, I actually totally agree! That phrasing was just the only way I could think of to derail this thread into a discussion of the DH rule. I don't actually like watching pitchers hit. Rather, I do like watching pitchers hit, but it doesn't happen very often, and I'll agree that watching them try to hit isn't maybe the game at its most entertaining. But the dimension it adds to coaching decisions (like the one that actually is the subject of this post) is what that I'll really miss.

Tip of the hat also to DirtyOldTown, whose analogy to cursive made me laugh. I'm glad you're here too!
posted by 7segment at 8:52 AM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

People complain that baseball is slow and full of pauses

I think baseball really suffers from not having any idea of when the game will end. When a game has been going on for three hours already and then it's a pitching change followed by more pitching changes it really draaaagggsss.
posted by josher71 at 8:53 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

football remains the most popular sport in the US and is defined by its pauses, its resets, and a play clock to force players to play the game

To emphasize that point further: the average NFL game is 75 minutes of advertising, 67 minutes of players standing around, 17 minutes of replays, 11 minutes of actual playing time.

Seeing an NFL game in person is particularly awful. TV commercial breaks are so frequent it's just an abominable slog to just sit there in limbo every few minutes. For an in-person experience, baseball is sooooo much better.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:53 AM on April 15, 2022 [13 favorites]

And since no one asked, I appreciate having pitchers hit since it usually results in outs which make the game go faster.
posted by josher71 at 8:54 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think baseball really suffers from not having any idea of when the game will end.

In some respects, that's a feature! Baseball is one of the few games where it's really not over until it's over. Football and basketball games can be mathematically over with a sufficient lead and clock manipulation. Baseball games can see any deficit turned around with an incredible rally in the last inning.

And speaking of "when it will end," you also see some incredible manipulation of the clocks in football and basketball, where the "last two minutes" can sometimes stretch out for 20.
posted by explosion at 9:22 AM on April 15, 2022 [9 favorites]

If I were Kershaw I would simply throw 18 strikes in a row to both wrap up my perfect game & keep the manager happy with my low pitch count.
posted by stinkfoot at 9:24 AM on April 15, 2022 [10 favorites]

incredible manipulation of the clocks in football and basketball, where the "last two minutes" can sometimes stretch out for 20.

This is why I like soccer where you can only buy so much time with injuries etc...

But point taken!
posted by josher71 at 9:40 AM on April 15, 2022

The Whitey Herzog story DoT posted above speaks to baseball's flexible endings with this bit at the end:

The fracas seemed to inspire the Giants. After pulling to within three runs, 10-7 [from 10-2 in the 7th -ed], the Giants had two runners on base with two outs in the ninth before Todd Worrell got Candy Maldonado on a flyout to right.

“They had the tying run at the plate in the ninth,” Herzog told The Sporting News. “That’s why we run.”

posted by rhizome at 9:51 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Seeing an NFL game in person is particularly awful. TV commercial breaks are so frequent it's just an abominable slog to just sit there in limbo every few minutes

I realized several years ago that people attending major sporting events aren't the audience, they're extras on a TV show.

Except extras get paid and people pay to attend games.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:52 AM on April 15, 2022 [8 favorites]

I've started listening to Sleep Baseball and it always amuses me that left fielder Gilligan Parker is introduced as returning to the game after being out with "an unspecified fishing injury"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:00 AM on April 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

Baseball is the most “ambient” American sport and that works for me. One doesn’t feel obligated to pay close attention to every moment of every regular season game. One puts the game on in the background, or one goes to the game to eat ballpark food and drink beer and hang out. And then when the game does count it can be pretty dramatic.

Basketball is the most impressive athletic spectacle and easiest to invest in individual players so I like that, too.

I could probably be into football if I learned all the deep tactical stuff but without being tuned into that it’s indeed the dullest.
posted by atoxyl at 10:01 AM on April 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

Basketball is the most impressive athletic spectacle and easiest to invest in individual players so I like that, too.

Though I am not too fond of how much of the game often happens in the last couple clock minutes, as brought up earlier in the thread.
posted by atoxyl at 10:05 AM on April 15, 2022

Tow caveats. First being Kershaw's recent injury history, and second being the attenuated Spring Training.

With that said; I wouldn't be this mildly pissed if it was just a regular no-hitter. But this was a Perfecto we are talking about here, of which there have been only 23 in the history of the game. And Kershaw had pitched 80, and none of the previous 7 had he struggled (no inning had a pitch count greater than 15). He should have been brought back for the 8th on a short leash. Meaning any sign of oddness, he gets yanked. And he would be definitely pulled if he gave up a baserunner (thus losing the perfecto).
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:22 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I wavered about how I was going to frame this post for a full day before I just punted to a single link that presents both sides pretty well, and trusted y'all to fill in the gaps and the arguments politely. Which you have, so thank you for that.

I think I've finally come down on Roberts' side here. We don't know whether Kershaw argued it, and I presume we would have heard something to that effect by now, so if he's cool with letting go of probably the one thing he could still achieve in his career (short of someone endowing a Nobel Prize in Pitching), then I am too.

On the other hand, if Kershaw misses out on a first-ballot HOF bid because of this (and he shouldn't, but lord knows the BWAA has made more indefensible decisions than that), I hope he beans Roberts at his ceremony the year after.
posted by Etrigan at 10:33 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I totally get Dave Roberts' decision. I've been a baseball stathead for a long time. As a kid, I played tabletop baseball games like Strat-o-Matic and during the pandemic I discovered Out of the Park Baseball, a computer sim with amazing detail and accuracy that lets you play manager and/or GM. And I'm a good field manager and a ruthless, heartless GM; in just one year I rebuilt the woeful Orioles into a World Series winner-- in part by trading Trey Mancini, a beloved, once-excellent player that you can't help but root for.

But I would have let Kershaw go back out there. Perfect games are the rarest of baseball achievements. He'll almost certainly never get this close again, and he's carried the Dodgers for so long that he deserved the chance, if he wanted it.

Modern baseball offers fewer and fewer chances for these moments. You've gotta wish that we could have seen a legendary player taking a shot at creating one more legend.
posted by martin q blank at 10:36 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Six outs is hardly a sure thing anyway!
posted by rikschell at 10:38 AM on April 15, 2022

Seeing an NFL game in person is particularly awful.

To riff on the old joke, "First prize is a pair of NFL season tickets! Second prize is two pair!"
posted by thecaddy at 10:39 AM on April 15, 2022

Six outs is hardly a sure thing anyway!

Why hello, 2003 NLCS Game 6 Cubs.
posted by hwyengr at 11:06 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

To riff on the old joke, "First prize is a pair of NFL season tickets! Second prize is two pair!"

Is that why tailgating is a thing for football and not baseball?

A sport can't be all that exciting to watch if people would rather hang out in the stadium's parking lot watching the game on television while grilling food.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:17 AM on April 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Baseball is the most “ambient” American sport and that works for me.

I'm not a fan myself, but golf is also a sport.
posted by box at 11:44 AM on April 15, 2022

>golf is also a sport.

Yes, but pro golf has not been an ambient sport since the "GET IN THE HOLE" lunkheads took over.
posted by rhizome at 11:47 AM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Recently I started subscribing to some internet sport channel (to watch football (specifically the Championsleague - which is … worth it)) and a side perk is Baseball. When I lived in the US I learned how baseball works and started following it and it is a terrific sport. Better than football, despite the throngs of Fans world-wide, gimme sports like baseball, Rugby, Cricket - hell even lawn-bowling - games with kind of arbitrary rules and ridiculously specialized skill-sets : perfectly beautiful pointlessness. Just like life.
So with this internet thing they rebroadcast game _without_ the ads and it is *fantastic* so quiet, so tense, occasionally, so different : calm and consequential.

Kershaw‘s ability to pitch through or not is way above my pay-grade, but I lean on the side of let him try. What‘s the worst that could happen, a career-ending injury? Oh, really? That really is possible? Hmmm. Well, thank god that wasn’t my problem …
posted by From Bklyn at 12:24 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

There's no other American sport where the announcers can have this kind of conversation. Baseball is the best.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:09 PM on April 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Since the razing of Wrigleyville I’ve been a fan without a team. So now I just stream the radio broadcast of any game that happens to be on the MLB app, and let it flow into the background.

Though I did just pick up a wonderful ‘70s-esque brown and yellow Padres cap.
posted by hwyengr at 1:27 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've gone back and forth on it. I understand the numbers, the surgeries, the shortened training period - logically Dave Roberts was 100% correct to pull Kershaw.

Irrationally, emotionally, to have a perfect game that close - right at the edge of your fingernails - argh
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:37 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

It is a big deal to be that close to a perfect game, of course, which is why I think Kershaw's opinion does matter.

Imagine Roberts trying to pull Max Scherzer after the 7th inning of this game last September. Would have been quite a bit more of a scene than this reaction if he tried, and the call might have gone the other way.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:53 PM on April 15, 2022

Yeah, some of the "romance" of baseball has shifted because of metrics. It's weird to me that teams don't have dedicated closers anymore, but it makes sense -- you put in the best pitcher for the situation nowadays. Breaking the single-season saves record might feel good, but if you're losing ballgames because the best reliever isn't facing the top of the order, it doesn't mean much.

Personally I think this aspect makes the game even better... I loved seeing Paul Sewald of the Mariners get the call to face the toughest hitters night after night toward the end of the season last year. But you do have to get used to some of the traditional accomplishments becoming less meaningful.
posted by rouftop at 2:02 PM on April 15, 2022

Didn’t Dave Roberts do almost exactly the same thing with another pitcher a few years back?

I can’t quite remember, but this one has deja vu all over it.
posted by jamjam at 2:27 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's no other American sport where the announcers can have this kind of conversation. Baseball is the best.

Let's Go Mets!
posted by mikelieman at 2:52 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

The best response regarding the Giants/Padres flap is that a team who’s way ahead should only agree to stop trying to score runs if the underdog agrees to stop trying to come back.

I think a better rule would be the team that is down and wants to effectively call it quits has to refund the fans for the prorated ticket value of the game they don't want to compete in.
posted by srboisvert at 6:16 PM on April 15, 2022

I haven't really followed the articles about this but I'm assuming that Roki Sasaki pitching a perfect game in Japan less than a week ago was probably on at least some people's minds. But Roki Sasaki is 20 years old. I can see people watching the game live getting upset but coming into it from the outside, it was probably for the best that he got pulled.

As a sidenote Sasaki's old high school manager caught flak for not starting him during a Koshien game, the annual high school baseball tournament where star pitchers tend to throw a whole lot. Like every game without rest a lot.

Also, younger Dave Stieb would probably have punched someone who tried to pull him at that point (and then lost it on the final out anyway).
posted by LostInUbe at 6:39 PM on April 15, 2022

A propos of the excellent Stieb documentary (and excellent Stieb), I wonder how much longer his peak and career would have been (and how much better the HOF case Secret Base is stumping for would have been) had his meteoric rise to pitching excellence not occurred during an era where his managers allowed him to develop bone spurs and tendon damage through overuse and then continued to overuse him for years.
posted by Earthtopus at 6:46 PM on April 15, 2022

This sport is a religious ceremony designed to keep the old gods happy. First the National League implements the designated hitter and now this. The people in charge of this game are going to get us all killed.
posted by interogative mood at 8:03 PM on April 15, 2022 [7 favorites]

Roki Sasaki pitched eight innings of perfect ball today but he wasn't striking guys out at the same rate as his last start so his coach pulled him before he faced anyone in the 9th. The reliever technically completed a no-hitter but a runner got on base on an uncaught third strike. Then the next reliever gave up a solo shot in the tenth so Sasaki gets a no-decision and Lotte loses the game. Baseball!
posted by LostInUbe at 1:43 AM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Johan Santana got the Mets their first ever no-hitter. It took 147 pitches. He was never the same thereafter. High pitch counts are a real danger. How high is high? Depends,
posted by SemiSalt at 12:57 PM on April 17, 2022

If you hate the DH, might be a good time to pop on over to Obvious Shirts where the "F THE DH" shirt is half off.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:48 PM on April 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

By the way... if any of you baseball nerds haven't seen the Korean tv show Stove League, go to Kocowa and get a free demo and binge that biz now. It's basically Ted Lasso meets Moneyball and it's just freakishly satisfying and addictive.

And then go to FF and tell me you watched it because it is the literally the best baseball show ever made and it hurts my soul how few people have seen it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:02 AM on April 22, 2022