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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, October 04, 2012
No matter how much the Tropicana Field crowd — as well as RHP Joel Peralta — called for RHP Fernando Rodney in the ninth inning Wednesday night, manager Joe Maddon wasn’t going to use his All-Star closer unless it was absolutely necessary.
Maddon knew Rodney entered the season finale holding the single-season record for lowest ERA by a reliever in baseball history, percentage points better than Dennis Eckersley’s 0.61 (1990). And Maddon wasn’t going to risk history just for the fans’ favor.
But after Peralta gave up a two-out single to Orioles C Matt Wieters, with the Rays up just three runs, Maddon gave everyone what they wanted, bringing Rodney in for the final out.
Rodney got DH Jim Thome to fly out to left then shot his imaginary arrow into the sky for the 48th and final time, receiving another standing ovation for his special season.
Rodney improved his reliever record for lowest ERA (0.60), allowing five earned runs over 74 2/3 innings.
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No matter how much the Tropicana Field crowd — as well as RHP Joel Peralta — called for RHP Fernando Rodney in the ninth inning Wednesday night, manager Joe Maddon wasn’t going to use his All-Star closer unless it was absolutely necessary.
Maddon knew Rodney entered the season finale holding the single-season record for lowest ERA by a reliever in baseball history, percentage points better than Dennis Eckersley’s 0.61 (1990). And Maddon wasn’t going to risk history just for the fans’ favor.
But after Peralta gave up a two-out single to Orioles C Matt Wieters, with the Rays up just three runs, Maddon gave everyone what they wanted, bringing Rodney in for the final out.
Rodney got DH Jim Thome to fly out to left then shot his imaginary arrow into the sky for the 48th and final time, receiving another standing ovation for his special season.
Rodney improved his reliever record for lowest ERA (0.60), allowing five earned runs over 74 2/3 innings.
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1. BourbonSamurai Is a Lazy Nogoodnik Posted: October 04, 2012 at 02:14 PM (#4254256)I wish the worst upon him: I hope he goes back to being the old Fernando Rodney.
You have to lower the innings threshold to 45 to get someone with a lower ERA than those two, which gets you Joey Devine's 2008 (0.59 in 45.2) and Buck O'Brien's 1911 (0.38 in 47.2). O'Brien had 7 UER runs (vs 2 ER) though, and 5 GS with 1 relief appearance, while Devine, Eckersley, and Rodney each had 4 UER and no GS. Devine also had a bunch more appearances where he didn't finish the game, so presumably more chances for the bullpen to bail him out of baserunners he put on or allow runs to score that he got charged. After a quick check, it looks like neither Eckersley nor Rodney got relieved for with runners on in their respective seasons.
Kimbrel. Rodney was a fluky year, Kimbrel has shown over two seasons that he is this good.
It's funny how many pitchers there are like this. I remember when Carlos Marmol came up, and he was throwing those fribee breaking balls that guys were missing by 2 feet. Juan Cruz was the same way - he seemed to have better pure stuff than any of the other young Cubs pitchers (Prior, Wood, Zambrano).
Some combination of control and makeup seems to be the thing that separates the ones who make it from the ones who don't.
Fred Norman in 1967: 3 batters faced, 3 strikeouts.
Only 4 guys have a K/9 of 27 and 0 baserunners, Norman and three guys with 1 batter faced each. They are Joey Dawley, Scott Sheldon, and, of all people, Kevin Seitzer.
At 60 IP it's Kimbrel with a 1.01 RA.
At 70 IP it's Rollie Fingers from 1981. There are 4 guys with 70 IP and 9 runs allowed:
Rk Player IP R Year ER ERA ERA+1 Rollie Fingers 78.0 9 1981 9 1.04 333
2 Fernando Rodney 74.2 9 2012 5 0.60 634
3 Eric OFlaherty 73.2 9 2011 8 0.98 389
4 Dennis Eckersley 73.1 9 1990 5 0.61 603
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/4/2012.
I saw it on Bleacher Report. Kimbrel is the only pitcher to do this over a large sample size. The only other player to strike out a majority of his batters faced (min. 10 BF) was Francisco Rodriguez, who struck out 13 of 21 batters (5 2/3 IP) in September 2002 before earning postseason glory as K-Rod.
As for Rodney, being a Detroiter I've seen a lot of him. It seemed as a Tiger that he would have command of either the fastball or changeup, but seldom both (and sometimes neither). With the Rays, he has had great command of both pitches and he appears more comfortable on the mound.
Excellent! I thought Kimbrel would be in the running, but I definitely didn't expect him to hold the record (at least for a 60 IP minimum). It really is a season for the ages.
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