Tag Archives: warren spahn

Connie Mack 1887

“1932 – To save train fare for the single-date appearance, Connie Mack takes along just two A’s pitchers to Cleveland. Lew Krausse the A’s starting pitcher, gives up four hits in the first inning and his replacement, Eddie Rommel pitches 17 innings in relief, giving up a record 29 hits, but wins 18-17.  

I had no idea whatsoever of blogging this morning.  Need to clean house after my 8 day baseball tour left things in a bit of shambles here, but this little ditty brought up all sorts of stuff that’s been on my mind anyhow so I wanted to share some of it with you.

The Giants are my home team and this is particularly relevant to them, but it’s going on everywhere lately and frankly I think the fans are getting a little tired and fed up with it.  Probably the pitchers are too.  It relates to a relief pitcher coming in and throwing

Juan Marichael

one or two pitches and the coach pulls him out – or worse, the starting pitcher throws a bad pitch inthe 4th or 5th inning  and is pulled out only to have the relief guy come in and walk the next three.  I was listening to a great interview with Bob Costas and Juan Marichal a few weeks ago and Juan talked about pitching 15 innings with a pitch count of over 227 pitches back in the 70’s.   The game was between the SF Giants and Milwaukee Braves and both Marichal and Warren Spahn pitched scoreless innings until the 16th when Willie Mays homered to end the game 1- 0.  Just this week the Giants took along a huge arsenal of pitchers on their road trip.   And at one point in one game they’d pretty much used them all, at least all the eligible ones.  Maybe the problem is they have to pay so much for a pitcher nowadays, they can’t afford to use him more than a couple pitches a game, at least the relief pitchers.  Or maybe they’re worried they won’t be able to get the job done.  Who knows.  But c’mon coach.  Get real.  For the amount of money these guys make, if the coach puts them in a game after 4-5 days off-time and they can’t even make it through one inning, how

Dusty Baker 2002 World Series

valuable are they to the team anyway?   Maybe the coaches (includes managers) should have a little more faith in their pitchers, both starters and relievers.    Remember in the 2002 World Series ….. with the Giants leading 5–3 going after the bottom of the 7th inning of Game 6?   Giants Manager Dusty Baker took pitcher Russ Ortiz out of the game and brought in relief pitcher Felix  Rodriguez who almost immediately gave up a 3 run homer to Scott Spiezio  for the Angels.  A win for the Giants would have given them the lead in the Series.   Instead, Anaheim went on to win the game 6-5 and eventually the 2002 World Series.   To this day I can hardly look at Dusty Baker without feeling he was trying to throw the game.  Probably a little reactionary on my part,  but that’s how I feel.  When I read about Eddie Rommel this day in history it brings back all those gut feelings of maybe, just maybe, the managers and coaches should be trusting our pitchers a little more.  Isn’t that after all what they’re getting paid to do?   If they don’t trust them to get the job done, what are they doing there in the first place?    Just one person’s opinion after sitting through

Scott Spiezio

too many games watching the pitcher get yanked before he gets  a chance to finish the job he’s hired to do.   At least that’s the way I see it.   Okay, back to cleaning the house! 

Here’s a synopsis of that infamous Game 6 Saturday, October 26, 2002 at Edison International Field of Anaheim in Anaheim, California

WP: Brendan Donnelly (1–0)  LP: Tim Worrell (1–1)  SV: Troy Percival (2)  
HRs:  SF – Shawon Dunston (1), Barry Bonds (4)  ANA – Scott Spiezio (1), Darin Erstad (1)