A Thread For Starting Pitchers That Are Doing Really Well

LOL

still a better pitcher than corbin burnes imo

Esoteric record...Most runs in an inning that breaks up a no-hitter in the 7th inning or later?

11 runs!

11 hits in the inning alone

I thought the Orioles had used up their capacity to surprise me but they just don't know the word quit

Houck perfect through 5 - and then pulled.

kershaw perfect through 6 innings, with 12 Ks, 69 pitches

7!

Shoot, guess he’s coming out.

i kinda assumed they'd pull him anyway, between it's dave roberts and it's 2022 clayton kershaw

no pressure, blake treinen, but...YOU MUST BE PERFECT or you're gonna let down dodger nation

Just finding out about this...6-0 lead, 80 pitches? Well, I'm sure you know what I think.

oh sorry, i guess ales vesia instead

i'd guess a lot of it has to do with short spring training, too, pitchers not being worked up to 100% yet

It’s a shame, but very understandable.

welp. sorry kid

that was in response to the hit just now. poor vesia

Hope the Dodgers lose, or hope they have to burn through four or five pitchers saving the win.

7 IP, 80 pitches, 13 Ks, 0 BBs

20 swinging strikes (!)

Well, what can you do against an elite hitter like, *checks notes*, Gary Sanchez

I’m seeing on Twitter that Clayton Kershaw was perfect through 7 and got yanked? Did that really happen?

#Dodgers C Austin Barnes on Clayton Kershaw being pulled from PG: "Later in the season, when he's a little more built up, I think he goes out there, but I think that's the right call, taking him out there. It was the right move, for sure. I think he was getting a little tired."

— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) April 13, 2022

Honestly, I doubt they'd leave him in then, either. It'd be "He's pitched a lot of innings for us this year, no point in pushing him."

I know I'm howling into the wind here, but...James used to say that pitch count was less important than how many pitches were thrown after the pitcher was tired--that that's when injuries happen. If you concede that there's some truth there--and maybe you don't--I question how tired Kershaw would be when he so clearly dominated the first seven innings.

I would have said "You get one baserunner or 90 pitches--either one happens, you're out."

And what if he's at 90 pitches and one batter away? I don't know.

he seemed pretty ok with it. i think he also just had another kid or something. dude is on a roll

bill james is the dennis perrin of clemenza

He was definitely okay with it:

Kershaw had no issue with Roberts' thought process, telling reporters after the game his manager made "the right decision."

If he wasn't, though, I'm not sure we'd ever know.

Roberts' decision to pull Kershaw drew comparisons to another call he made in 2016, his first year managing L.A. On Sept. 10, 2016, Roberts removed Rich Hill after seven perfect innings due to injury concerns, becoming the first manager in AL/NL history to remove a pitcher from a perfect game after seven innings, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Can't say as I remember that, but I was probably on here whining about it.

(xpost) Well, I criticize him lots on here (check the James thread). But, unlike many, I haven't decided he's this doddering old guy who never wrote anything worth remembering.

hehe perrin ain't bad either, just joshin'

I might send in an "Ask Bill" about this, but I suspect he'll either beg off (because of his time with the Red Sox, I find he's more reluctant to criticize guys like Roberts who've been around the game for a long time--one of the things I like less about him now) or even agree with the decision.

I'm in this FB group, "Third Base Saloon," where there's a poll up on taking out Kershaw...13-1 against right now! We're all going to get together later and find some clouds to yell at.

you're pretty passionate about this clemenza! haha

honest q: what's the most pitches a starting pitcher has thrown so far in a game this year?

just wondering if starting pitchers are going 100+ already.

looks like scherzer threw 96 yesterday

My guess is Kershaw today, almost certainly.

I totally understand all the arguments against. It's just...I see baseball becoming less and less popular all the time, and I do wonder if there's connection between the two. I became a fan in the '70s primarily because of the players and all the wondrous things they did. Willie Stargell hit 40 HR and 40 doubles? Is that even possible? Etc., etc.

If you feel strongly that 20 more pitches would have potentially done long-term damage to Kershaw, then of course it's an easy decision. I just personally don't believe that.

It was actually today Scherzer threw 96.

Here's where I'd differentiate...He only gave up one run, but 96 pitches over 5 innings is a lot; he had eight baserunners (5 hits/3 BB), so he wasn't exactly sailing. In that case--and just based on the boxscore--I'd say they left him out there too long, pushing him to 5.0 IP so he could get the win.

Any time something bad happens to the Dodgers we should cherish it

Don't know a thing about this publication, but worth it for the headline:

https://defector.com/kershaw-perfect-game-prison/

Maybe someone with Play Index can verify this, but Kershaw's Game Score of 90 today has the be the highest ever for 7 innings.

Defector is Deadspin

The Real Deadspin

By Game Score, Clayton Kershaw just threw the greatest seven-inning start ever.

Kershaw, 4/13/22: 90
Sale, 8/16/15: 88
Woodruff, 9/11/20: 87
Cole, 9/24/19: 87

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) April 13, 2022

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/imperfect-circumstances-foiled-clayton-kershaws-perfect-game/

jaffe:

The Dodgers couldn’t have asked for much more from Clayton Kershaw than what he gave them in his first start of the 2022 season, and so they didn’t. Faced with the unenviable choice of letting the future Hall of Famer push himself into the red in pursuit of a perfect game — under frigid conditions in Minnesota, no less — or take a more prudent course with a 34-year-old hurler whose last regular-season appearance placed his future in doubt, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went against all sentimentality. He pulled Kershaw after seven spotless innings and 80 pitches, a move that the pitcher later called “the right choice,” and the Dodgers settled for a combined one-hitter and a 7-0 victory at Target Field.

...Under normal circumstances, given his 80-pitch count, Kershaw would have been in the clear to chase after the 24th perfect game in major league history and the first since the Mariners’ Félix Hernández’s August 15, 2012 masterpiece against the Rays. Kershaw had already notched a no-hitter against the Rockies at Dodger Stadium on June 18, 2014, missing out on a perfect game only due to a Hanley Ramirez throwing error. These were not normal circumstances, however, and not just because the first-pitch temperature at Target Field was 38 degrees, with 18 mph winds and a wind chill factor of 28 degrees.

Kershaw has landed on the injured list in each of the last five seasons, averaging just 25 starts and 157 innings in the non-pandemic years and topping out at 28 starts and 178.1 innings while navigating a variety of back, shoulder, and elbow ailments. When he’s been available, he’s generally been excellent, making three All-Star teams, each in years accompanied by Cy Young support; in 2017, he won his fifth ERA title, topped 200 strikeouts for the seventh time, and placed second in the Cy Young voting behind Max Scherzer. Last year, despite an ERA that ballooned to a career-high 3.55 due to his late-season woes, he produced a 16.7% swinging strike rate, the highest in the majors among pitchers with at least 100 innings. During all of those starts and stops, he’s helped the Dodgers to three pennants and, in 2020, their long-elusive championship.

Though he’s shed that particular burden, Kershaw brought additional baggage to Wednesday’s start. In his last regular season appearance, on October 1, 2021, he had retired just five of 10 Brewers over the course of 42 pitches before leaving the mound due to discomfort in his left forearm. That abortive outing was his fourth start after a 10-week absence due to his forearm inflammation. The early departure ruled him out for the 2021 postseason, depriving him of a chance to help the Dodgers defend their title and sending him into free agency for the first time with a great deal of uncertainty about whether he’d return, not only to Los Angeles but to baseball at all.

Kershaw underwent a platelet-rich plasma injection into his left flexor tendon in early October, didn’t begin throwing again until January, and didn’t re-sign with the Dodgers until March 11. On the day after the lockout ended, he agreed to a one-year, $17 million deal with incentives that could take him to $22 million. He made only three Cactus League starts, then followed with a five-inning, 75-pitch simulated game on April 7, the day before the Dodgers opened their season against the Rockies in Colorado.

That confluence of circumstances made completing the perfect game too tall an order, but that probably would have been the case for any pitcher given the hasty run-up to the season. Through Tuesday, no starter had pitched more than seven innings in a single game, only five out of 150 had gone more than six innings, and only six had topped 90 pitches. As the game returned from a commercial break at the top of the seventh, the SportsNet Los Angeles feed showed Kershaw and Roberts conversing in the Dodgers’ dugout. The subject of their discussion was no mystery. Via The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya:

Dave Roberts said Clayton Kershaw asked him to go back out for the seventh inning after he completed the sixth at 69 pitches. Told him then he wanted to finish at around 80, 85 pitches (he'd been built up to 75). "(He's) earned the right to have a conversation," Roberts said.

— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) April 13, 2022

I think most of that is already known to anyone who wanted him to stay in--it's basically a risk vs. reward question, and how great a risk you think is involved. Based on the efficiency of his first 80 pitches (I think he went to a 3-ball count four times), I believe the risk is being overstated by take-him-out advocates.

I think the best point in that piece is made by David Cone (later on, not excerpted above):

"The problem for managers is that you have to make the decision after the seventh inning, because if you allow him to go out and pitch the eighth inning, then you can’t stop it. If he’s perfect after eight, he’s only three outs away and he might be over a hundred pitches, then you have a real quandary."

but how do you ask a pitcher who has already requested to come out of the game at around 80-85 pitches to stay in and try to complete the game instead? maybe i'm misreading that Ardaya quote (it's kind of ambiguously worded), but isn't that Kershaw telling Roberts that he wanted to finish at 80 or 85 pitches? i'm just imagining Roberts hearing that, knowing his injury history, and then telling him "no, Kershaw. you go out there and keep pitching until you are something less than perfect. because when i look into your eyes right now, that's all i can see. perfection. now get out there!" *baseball slap on butt encouragement*

lol

"Dammit Clayton – I deeply respect you as a human being. Someday I'm gonna make you Mrs. Dave Roberts. Listen, you go back out there and give it all you got. Show me hoe perfect you can be. All right?"

"tonight i want you to make the greater Los Angeles area perfect. just for one night."

When Kershaw said he wanted to finish at 80 or 85 pitches, I'm going to take a wild guess that he wasn't factoring in "And that includes the possibility that I'll be working on a perfect game where I haven't had to push myself even once yet."

Here, to me, is a much more reasonable way to look at this (from, who else, Posnanski's column today--"The Johan Santana Game"):

“A lot of people blame the no-hitter on being the end of my career,” Santana would say. “But I don’t look at it that way. Because your career can end in one pitch in the beginning of your career or 10 years later or 20 years later.”

And I think that’s right. The risk is always there. And so is the opportunity. I believe Dave Roberts made the right choice with Kershaw because I believe it’s what Kershaw wants — he’s a team player from K to W, and he wants to protect that elbow and pitch all season and make another run at the World Series. Pulling him after seven innings might give him a better chance of doing that. I think we can respect that choice.

I believe Johan Santana wanted something else. He wanted history, and he was willing to risk the rest to make it happen. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that choice either.

Lost my connection there...

So he's supporting Roberts, and taking it, on faith, that what Kershaw is saying publicly is what he actually wanted. But he's also aware of the hidden cost--what was lost--and saying that going the other route is perfectly acceptable.

(Two guys on the radio this morning thought that Kershaw was put into an impossible spot simply by being consulted. If he says "Yeah, I'd like to stay in," he'll get grief for pursuing selfish goals. I don't agree with that on balance--I'd rather he be in on the decision--but I don't think their conclusion is wrong either.)

Last thing I really want to say on this: once again, I totally understand taking him out. What I hate, though, is someone dispassionately making all the obvious arguments as to why you take him out without ever acknowledging the other side, the historic opportunity that was lost (and just saying something like "perfect games are cool, of course" doesn't really get at that).

I did send in a "Hey Bill" (one of three Kershaw-related questions he posted today):

Bill -- Would you have pulled Kershaw today? Or is that a pointless question unless you have as much first-hand information about the situation as Dave Roberts?

I'm pretty sure you once wrote--maybe more than once--that pitch-count in the abstract is meaningless, the important thing is how many pitches are thrown after a pitcher is tired. Seeing as Kershaw was seemingly sailing through the game, and had a six-run lead, my instinct is that he hadn't reached that point yet...but I know it's early in a season that had a late start to spring training.
Asked by: Phil Dellio

Answered: 4/15/2022
No, I didn't write that, although I remember that somebody did...I read it somewhere. I don't know the right or wrong of it. The chance that he would have finished the Perfect Game is about 10%. Is a 10% chance of a perfect game a big enough thing to risk an injury that might devastate his season? It isn't JUST the pitch count; you're talking about an older pitcher, and a very early-season game after a shortened spring training. Not saying that he SHOULD have come out; I would just urge you to present the problem fully, rather than with a slant.

I indicated above that I thought there'd be a good chance he'd agree with the decision--he comes pretty close to doing that.

A couple of minor things...I might not have presented the problem fully fully, but of the three points he makes--older pitcher, early, short spring training--I did acknowledge two of them. And I'm positive he once wrote that about pitch count. He does that now and again with reader e-mail, say he either doesn't remember writing something somebody quotes--understandable--or say it's something he never wrote. Trying to dig up something is virtually impossible: the Historical Abstracts are indexed, but the yearly Abstracts, and the yearly Baseball Books, aren't.