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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Friday, August 27, 2021Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale joins Sandy Koufax as only pitchers on record with 3 immaculate innings
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: August 27, 2021 at 08:40 AM | 30 comment(s)
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1. villageidiom Posted: August 27, 2021 at 10:58 AM (#6036685)I mean, inside the park home runs are not as good an outcome as hitting a HR over the fence. You have to run, like, really hard!
OTOH, an immaculate inning, like an ITPHR, is a better outcome for the viewer. It's a "how about that!" moment. It's... fun. I'm not sure I need to explain the concept of fun, but this is the internet and all.
(FTR: Getting 3 outs on 3 pitches? Also fun.)
OTOH, an immaculate inning, like an ITPHR, is a better outcome for the viewer. It's a "how about that!" moment. It's... fun.
I guess, compared to normal strikeouts and walks, but contact, and men on base, and good defense are more fun. If I were to describe the most fun inning, it wouldn't be three K's, or three quick outs, of any sort.
Best outcome is to throw such an unhittable slow change that the batter swings and misses 3 times. As does the guy behind him, and the next one. One pitch - 3 strikeouts. Last time anybody did that was 1946.
i wish i could remember when it was, but i once saw kenley jansen throw an immaculate inning against the mariners, and the third out was ichiro, swinging, to end the game.
it was one of the coolest things i ever saw.
If we were seeing immaculate innings every day from less dominant pitchers, sure, but the fact that this is a relative outlier and that Sale is an outlier for having done it three times is part of the fun, especially considering that he's just come back from surgery etc. It's fun because, like the cycle and 500-foot home runs and steals of home and successful knuckleballers and 18-inning games, it's out at the far side of the bell curve and you feel lucky to watch it.
It may not be your favorite kind of high-variance play, but I tend to feel that half the actual problem with the game evolving is not just the specific direction it's going, but that the events are less varied. It's part of why I hate the no-pitch IBB and zombie runners, because they make weird events less likely.
yes I'm glad it's Sale and Koufax and there's no Bumpus Jones in the mix. It's an impressive accomplishment but as I don't track every pitch so I wouldn't necessarily know I was about to witness one, so it definitely lacks that in-the-moment excitement. I'd know "sweet he's about to strike out the side!!" but that's it unless I was clued in. And I certainly don't start every inning thinking "will THIS ONE be the one?"
I dunno, it'd be kind of fun if there was some relatively random guy in there, where you can say he obviously wasn't always as good as Sale and Koufax but certainly had days when he could reach the same peak.
For some values of "best", I guess. It's the quickest and most efficient, but while predictable and effective results are what GMs and coaches strive for, what's good for them isn't necessarily great for people watching the game as entertainment who want highs and lows, build-ups and climaxes, etc., rather than just positive end results.
Like, there are contexts when three pitches, three outs is exciting, I guess, but in context - Chris Sale still building up to his best but showing that he can just absolutely leave hitters with no chance - it's kind of fun, y'know?
Here we are, as fans, talking about stuff that's fun for at least some fans, and it's getting shot down because it's suboptimal for the players or because it's not the *most* fun thing. What's the opposite of schadenfreude? Like, y'all seem miserable about other people's joy.
I don't know how often it would have happened. If the first two guys make outs on two pitches, it's long been the rule the third guy takes one.
I wonder what the record is for the fewest number of pitches thrown in a 9 inning complete game win. That'd be about the most impressive record I could think of, since it would likely involve a pitcher's being able to trick lots and lots of batters into thinking they could drive balls that it turned out they couldn't.
Just about the best pitched game along those lines that I can remember was Ben McDonald's debut as a starting pitcher. He shut out the White Sox on 4 hits and used just 85 pitches,** in a game that took only 2:23. I don't think he ever had a better start in his entire 9 year career.
** By contrast, Don Larsen threw 97 pitches in his perfect game.
3 pitch innings are indeed more unusual at around 2x a year
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/3_pitch_inning.shtml
I believe the answer is 51. Don't have a cite though.
I just googled the question, and according to Baseball Almanac, the record is 58, set by Red Barrett of the Boston Braves in a 2-hit shutout of the Reds on August 10, 1944. Not too surprising that he had neither a single walk nor a single strikeout, and that the game was completed in an hour and 15 minutes.
Box score and details
In the 20 perfect games where pitch counts are known, the number of pitches has ranged from Addie Joss's 74 in 1908 to Matt Cain's 125 in 1912. The Time of Game has ranged from Cy Young's 1:25 in 1904 to David Wells' 2:40 in 1998. Larsen's and Wells' perfect games attracted the largest crowds, while only 6,298 witnessed Catfish Hunter's gem in 1968.
Box score and play-by-play
Newspaper account of the game
It seems highly doubtful that there's any meaningful difference in "usefulness" between a 5- or 7- or 9-pitch inning.
Or a 3-pitch inning, for that matter. What if on the first pitch, the CF makes an amazing running catch but hurts himself slamming into the wall? That's not good for the team!
Although if Wikipedia is correct & I'm reading it accurately, the guys who have thrown two immaculate innings are Koufax, Sale, Lefty Grove, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer – and Kevin Gausman.
It's my vague impression that that's the way with quite a few "signature" achievements. 8-game HR streak: Mattingly, Griffey, Dale Long. 4 HR in one game: Gehrig, Mays, Schmidt, etc., Pat Seerey, Scooter Gennett. Perfect games: Young, Koufax, Halladay, etc., Dallas Braden, Philip Humber.
Although if Wikipedia is correct & I'm reading it accurately, the guys who have thrown two immaculate innings are Koufax, Sale, Lefty Grove, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer – and Kevin Gausman.
Though apparently Gausman's newly discovered splitter is being called "the most dominant pitch in baseball". Maybe at 30 he'll blossom into the next Dazzy Vance, whose entire HoF career was based on what he did beginning at the age of 31.
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