I've never understood why managers don't go inning to inning with relievers when there is a threat of imminent rain. Why risk wasting your #1 starter?

But, I'm sure the reason goes like this: if a manager tried it and it failed, the manager would be blamed. If the weather wipes out the work of your #1 starter, the weather is blamed.

But, I'm sure the reason goes like this: if a manager tried it and it failed, the manager would be blamed. If the weather wipes out the work of your #1 starter, the weather is blamed.

Girardi tried that in this game. It ended up not working--the rain never came enough to stop the game and the scheduled starter (Ian Kennedy) ended up pitching the last three innings, not entering the game until the Yankees were down 2-0.

Of course, they pretty much got ####### by Zach Greinke (who went eight and didn't allow a run) so it didn't much matter, but it's never a sure thing.

5.2, 2 runs, no decision

Would've been far cooler if he had factored into 2 consecutive decisions.

When was the last time someone started three in a row? The 1800s, or more recently?

When was the last time someone started three in a row? The 1800s, or more recently?

I think Walter Johnson did. I can't recall the exact details but IIRC he started Friday, Saturday, and Monday, only skipping Sunday b/c they didn't play due to blue laws.

Edit: Here you go. 1908, 3 shutouts in 4 days.

http://www.baseballhistorian.com/html/american_heroes.cfm?page=82

3 Shutouts in 4 Days - Walter Johnson 1908

20 years-old and rings up a new pitching record!

At 6-fot-1, 190-pounds, Walter Johnson was a rapid worker, and his easy, sweeping sidearm delivery did not put much strain on his durable pitching arm.

In only his second year in the majors, 1908, he hurled three (3) shutouts in four days (4)... all against the New York Highlanders - they were not called the Yankees as yet.

On Friday, Sept 6th - he won 3-0... Saturday 6-0... and because Sunday was an off day because of the 'blue laws' not allowing games on Sunday... the New Yorkers couldn't believe their eyes when they saw Johnson warming up for the first game of a doubleheader... He stopped them cold again 4-0.

On Friday, Sept 6th - he won 3-0... Saturday 6-0... and because Sunday was an off day because of the 'blue laws' not allowing games on Sunday... the New Yorkers couldn't believe their eyes when they saw Johnson warming up for the first game of a doubleheader... He stopped them cold again 4-0.

Complete waste. Jack Morris would have won those game 3-2, 6-5 and 5-4 in 10 innings.

With that level of overuse, that kid's bound for a short career.

What was it that allowed pitchers of old like Walter Johnson, Cy Young, or Lefty Grove to abuse their arms like so and pitch for long careers?

What was it that allowed pitchers of old like Walter Johnson, Cy Young, or Lefty Grove to abuse their arms like so and pitch for long careers?

I would assume they were just physical freaks. Nolan Ryan probably took similar abuse with his frequent 150+ pitch counts.

There are probably guys in MLB right now who could do the same thing (although they might lose more effectiveness against today's deeper lineups).

The issue is we never identify these freaks anymore because we don't push guys.

What was it that allowed pitchers of old like Walter Johnson, Cy Young, or Lefty Grove to abuse their arms like so and pitch for long careers?

One of those is not so much like the others. In the majors, Grove threw fewer than 3000 innings. Even adding his "minors" numbers, he's about 4200 which is high but not astronomical. He never threw a 300 IP season in the majors (2 in the minors) and never made more than 37 starts (once at 39 in the minors). Fergie Jenkins is a more impressive example of durability.

As to the rest, dead balls and probably not throwing all that hard (except Johnson). Young is one of the few who survived that pre-1900 workload for very long. Pud Galvin has the 2nd most IP in history and even he could only stand it for 14 years. Alexander, Keefe and Nichols are impressive but are in the same range as Blyleven, Maddux, Carlton and Spahn.

Take a guy like Mickey Welch. He had over 4300 IP from 20-29. He had another good year at 30 (but only 300 IP!) then he was done. Between 1876 and 1899, "only" 17 pitchers topped 3000 innings. They were the ones who survived, the rest didn't -- not that much unlike all the 60s-70s studs. I know some of those guys added more in other leagues or after 1899.

If there's a lesson to be drawn from early pitcher usage (and I'm not sure there is) it would seem to be that an arm has only so many innings in it and you can either cram them all into as short a period as possible or as long a period as possible.

What was it that allowed pitchers of old like Walter Johnson, Cy Young, or Lefty Grove to abuse their arms like so and pitch for long careers?

For Johnson and Young, facing lineups that featured three or maybe four guys who could actually hit had something to do with it. It's said that Christy Matthewson would sometimes pitch flatfooted to bottom of the lineup batters. As for the Big Train's big weekend, the 1908 Highlanders hit .236/.283/.292 for a team OPS+ of 87. They had two players with OBP's above .330 and three who slugged better than .350, and only one guy did both.

I've never understood why managers don't go inning to inning with relievers when there is a threat of imminent rain. Why risk wasting your #1 starter?

But, I'm sure the reason goes like this: if a manager tried it and it failed, the manager would be blamed. If the weather wipes out the work of your #1 starter, the weather is blamed.

The other issue is that a lot more games start and progress to their conclusion without delay than start and stop early on. The benefit would probably be outweighed by the greater likelihood of the game starting and never being stopped. It seems that teams don't start games in dicey conditions if they expect to have to stop early on.

It's said that Christy Matthewson would sometimes pitch flatfooted to bottom of the lineup batters.

Well, if you really want to show up the opposing team, it's tough to top this item from the May 9 edition of Today in Baseball History:

With a twelve-run lead, Louisville Colonels right-handed pitcher Icebox Chamberlain holds the Kansas City Cowboys scoreless pitching left-handed for the last two innings.

Louisville Colonels right-handed pitcher Icebox Chamberlain

They just don't name 'em like they used to. I'm talking about "Icebox", not the Colonels.

Wikipedia claims that Satchel Paige "also pitched for a semi-pro team named the Down the Bay Boys, and he recalled that he once got into a jam in the ninth inning of a 1–0 ballgame when his teammates made three consecutive errors, loading the bases for the other team with two outs. Angry, Paige said he stomped around the mound, kicking up dirt. The fans started booing him, so he decided that “somebody was going to have to be showed up for that.” He called in his outfielders and had them sit down in the infield. With the fans and his own teammates howling, Paige struck out the final batter, winning the game."

It's already been done this season.

Jason Vargas started two consecutive games for the Mariners this year. He started their last game in Japan on March 29th, then their first game in the US on April 6th. They had that weird return to spring training (jet lag recovery) in between.

The first girl I ever had a crush on was nick-named "Icebox". Though not her face obviously. In retrospect that's a bit of a problematic nickname for a female.

The correct answer was alluded to in [12]. They called it "pitching in a pinch," or at least Mathewson did. The term specifically referred to the very common practice of exerting full effort only on a select few pitches each game, when you were facing a particularly dangerous batter or in a perilous situation. All the other times, you'd essentially just toss BP fastballs up there and see if they could hit it. This style of pitching became impossible when lineups began to feature more than one or two power threats. The style of pitching used today, where maximum effort is exerted on every single pitch, would have struck Deadball Era observers as bizarre and wasteful -- that is, if they'd ever heard of it, which they hadn't.

The correct answer was alluded to in [12]. They called it "pitching in a pinch," or at least Mathewson did. The term specifically referred to the very common practice of exerting full effort only on a select few pitches each game, when you were facing a particularly dangerous batter or in a perilous situation. All the other times, you'd essentially just toss BP fastballs up there and see if they could hit it. This style of pitching became impossible when lineups began to feature more than one or two power threats. The style of pitching used today, where maximum effort is exerted on every single pitch, would have struck Deadball Era observers as bizarre and wasteful -- that is, if they'd ever heard of it, which they hadn't.

How much of this is simply a reflection of the era's offense? In other words, how much of it is absolute, how much relative? Could you pitch in a pinch because the bad hitters were truly that much worse than the bad hitters of other generations because there was a wide talent gap? Or could you pitch in a pinch because it was a low-offense environment, so even if the bad hitters weren't historically bad they couldn't hurt you that much since no one could hurt you that much?

I love Mathewson but obviously he couldn't see his moment in comparative context. But--to celebrate his pitching over his analytic abilities--in 1905 he threw three shutouts in five games over six days in the World Series against an As lineup that only no starter with an OPS+ under 96. (John Knight had more plate appearances at SS over the season and a disastrous 57 OPS+ but Monte Cross and his 114 OPS+ in 300 plate appearances played short in the series.) So a lineup that has 2 guys in the 90s, 1 in the 100s, 1 in the 110s, 1 in the 120s, and in the 130s looks pretty balanced to me.

But of course they were playing in an era with no power, so that team had a slugging percentage of .338 which led the league. At least in that series I would guess that fact--the low slugging percentage--tells us more about how Mathewson could throw three complete game shutouts in 6 days than anything else, other than his historical greatness.

But obviously in a long regular season you could let your starter rack up innings against terrible teams for the reason you state, I suppose. Though even there, to take just 1905, the range isn't that extreme. The Superbas had one lousy starter, the Cardinals had two, the Reds had two, the Phillies had a catcher with a 75 OPS+, the Cubs had a bad-hitting catcher and two infielders with a 79 OPS+, the Pirates started one bad hitter. The only team that really fits the Pitching in a Pinch model is the second-to-last Beaneaters with one deplorable starter and three other guys between 74 and 84 OPS+. But that's still not that historically terrible for a 7th place team.

But if I had to guess why Mathewson and McGinnity could combine for 660 innings, I'd be tempted to bet 1) on the overall low slugging and 2) their own talents before attributing it to pitching in a pinch. And innings explode again when slugging collapses in the 60s/70s, even though those lineups weren't particularly imbalanced, I don't think.

How much of this is simply a reflection of the era's offense?

Most of it.

But obviously in a long regular season you could let your starter rack up innings against terrible teams for the reason you state, I suppose. Though even there, to take just 1905, the range isn't that extreme.

It wasn't so much about terrible teams as it was about weak spots in even good lineups. And even though I brought up team OPS+ for the Highlanders example, individual OPS+ isn't a great way to judge this given that it was such a low offense environment. None of this detracts from Matthewson's greatness, of course. It's not like every pitcher of his era was doing the things he did.

EDIT:

innings explode again when slugging collapses in the 60s/70s, even though those lineups weren't particularly imbalanced, I don't think.

Really? How many teams in the late '60s/early '70s had middle infielders who could hit?

Really? How many teams in the late '60s/early '70s had middle infielders who could hit?

Boy howdy, not many. To pick a year at random, I looked at the 1969 NL. The Astros had Joe Morgan and Dennis Menke, but the rest of the NL was mostly drek. here are the Non-Astro MI's SLPs.:

.306
.268
.341
.366
.308
.296
.408
.228
.292
.327
.307
.251
.345
.289
.341
.251
.317

Those 22 players combined for fewer HRs than Sammy Sosa hit in 1998.
.311
.342
.378
.272
.245

How much of this is simply a reflection of the era's offense?

Most of it.

I'd agree with this. If offense got back down to 3 R/G, I bet you'd see SPs racking up 300 IP again.

When slugging gets low enough, there's just no reason to push for K's rather than BIP.

If Verlander could groove 90-92 MPH FBs and not worry about the HR, he could probably get through 9 IP in 90 pitches.

I'd think the old timers would bear down with RISP, not just with the best hitters up. That would help minimize the runs allowed.