Bob Smizik: Complete games become obsolete
Share with others:
The statistic that mirrors the most significant change to take place in Major League Baseball the past decade is not one of those new-fangled sets of initials like OBP (on-base percentage), OPS (on base plus slugging) or RISP (runners in scoring position). Rather, it's a familiar two-letter designation that has been around as long as the sport: CG (complete game).
The complete game, one in which the pitcher who starts also finishes, is fast disappearing from baseball. With the season approaching its quarter point, 13 teams, including division-leading Detroit, are looking for their first CG.
The age of specialization is here. Where it once bordered on unmanly for a pitcher not to finish what he started, it has become the expected and more than accepted. In this age of specialization, there aren't just closers to pitch the ninth, but there are setup men to pitch the eighth and lesser setup men to pitch the seventh. There are also early men to relieve in the fifth inning or earlier and also left-handed specialists, who often come into the game to face only one batter.
An example of this specialization was on display this week at PNC Park. Monday night against the Florida Marlins, Tom Gorzelanny, who was pitching a five-hit shutout, failed to take the mound to start the eighth inning with the Pirates leading, 2-0. He was replaced by Matt Capps, the Pirates' superlative eighth-inning specialist.
Although the Pirates went on to win, 7-0, this trend bothers a lot of people. They can't understand why a pitcher who was doing so well would be removed from the game. Not to be unkind, but these people are living in the past. They might as well be wondering why Willie Parker, in addition to playing running back, isn't lining up at cornerback when the Steelers' opponent has the ball. The complete game is going the way of one-platoon football. In 20 years, it will be extinct.
Here are some statistics on the Pirates for the old-schoolers who rip managers for not permitting their pitchers to go a full nine innings. Keep in mind that the Pirates have not had a winning season since 1992. But look what the age of specialization has done even for this lowly team.
Since moving into PNC Park for the 2001 season, the Pirates' record when leading after seven innings, when there is almost always a reliever in the game, is 340-37. That's not a misprint. The Pirates, as bad as they have been, are 303 games over .500 when leading after seven innings since 2001.
When leading after eight, again with the extreme likelihood a reliever is in the game, the Pirates are 377-21. That's a winning percentage of .947.
That's what the age of specialization does. That's the primary reason manager Jim Tracy removed Gorzelanny.
"When you got a guy who is wiping people out like No. 55 in the eighth innings, I'm going to use that resource," he said of Capps.
Makes perfect sense, and it's a strategy on which Gorzelanny, and almost all starters, agree.
"It's the manager's call," said Gorzelanny. "Of course, you'd like to finish. But I have no problem with what he did."
Tracy had other reasons for removing Gorzelanny, a left-hander. They all made sense, more sense than keeping a young guy in the game so he can achieve one of the most meaningless statistics in baseball.
Tracy said: "He was at roughly 93 pitches, and they had the top of the order coming up, all of them right-handed. It was the fourth time through the lineup for him. I'm not going to put him in a position to lose the game. If we had three or four runs, I'd send him back out there. But with all those right-handers coming up ...
"I'm not going to let him lose. I don't think it's conducive to their development to pitch that well and have them come in and sit down in the clubhouse and ask themselves, 'What did I do wrong?' "
A few weeks earlier, Tracy allowed Paul Maholm, the losing pitcher in a 9-3 loss to the Marlins last night, to remain in a close game against the Houston Astros.
"The circumstances were different," Tracy said. "I believe Maholm completed nine innings with 99 pitches and never was in trouble. We saw Gorzelanny waver a little bit in the seventh. They had two runners on. Maholm was never threatened.
"But if one guy [in the final two innings] reached base, I was going to take Maholm out. And you know something? I was going to get the tar booed out of me."
It's not that Tracy has anything against his starters going nine innings. "I'm all for pitchers getting complete games," he said. "I don't like to take the ball away from guys."
But, when it comes to statistical abbreviations, he much prefers a W to a CG -- for all the right reasons.
First Published May 16, 2007 12:08 am
