Thank You, Dave Roberts

Good grief, I hate the idea that MLB teams fell the need to turn to their closers in the 9th, regardless of how well their starters are throwing. I've complained about this on numerous occasions  ("Let Starters Finish!", "Not to Beat a Dead Horse", "The Closer Temptation is Hard to Resist", "MLB's Ridiculous Obsession with Closers", "Not Everyone Can Throw Like Mariano Rivera"), but it's getting ridiculous. It used to be that if someone was pitching great, you'd let them finish the game. Not any more. Complete games are almost a thing of the past, and sometimes it costs teams games.

Like tonight. Tonight, the Dodgers, behind the pitching of Clayton Kershaw, led the Giants 2-1 after 8 innings. Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts could've sent Kershaw out to pitch the 9th, but he didn't, and the Dodgers' relievers gave up 4 runs and the Giants won 5-2. To be sure, Kershaw had thrown 110 pitches, but let's get real. As long as someone's arm is getting adequate rest, 110 pitches just aren't that many. When I played Little League, I threw more than 100 pitches a game, but I only threw once a week and didn't pitch from August to March, which is why I never had arm problems.

Of course you can't compare Kershaw to me (although I had a pretty wicked knuckleball in Little League), but it wasn't that long ago when MLB pitchers regularly threw between 100 and 150 pitches a game (as long as they were effective). In fact, in 1963, in what has been called the greatest game ever pitched, both Juan Marichal (who was 25 at the time) and Warren Spahn (who was 42!) threw 15+ innings before the Giants finally won it in the 16th inning on a Willie Mays home run. In the game, Marichal threw 227 pitches, and Spahn threw 201. To the best of my knowledge, Marichal and Spahn never had arm problems, but I think it's unlikely that you'll ever see anyone throw that many pitches in a major league game again.

Not that I'm complaining (i.e., about Roberts's decision to pull Kershaw). As one of my high school classmates recently remarked, there are few sweeter words for Giants fans than, "Dodgers lose." May it always be so.