Looking at the blown save redux

No one has to look at the stats or old game logs to know baseball is a much different game now than it was just 25 years ago. Just look at the innings pitched stats of the pitchers to learn all you need to know. Yes, the game has changed. Just look at the way folks are reacting to Brad Lidge’s 10 blown saves this year as exhibit A. Of those 10, including the one the Phillies’ closer snapped from the jaws of victory on Saturday night in Houston, five were walk-off jobs and four came after he retired the first hitter of the inning.

But here’s something for you… of the handful of pitchers with the record for most blown saves in a season (14), two of those pitchers are in the Hall of Fame. Yes, Bruce Sutter had 14 blown saves in 1978 only to come back to win the Cy Young Award in 1979 with 10 more blown saves.

Yes, that’s right. Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter from Donegal High School in Lancaster County, Pa. had 24 blown saves in two seasons and took home a Cy Young Award.

Of course Sutter didn’t always pitch just one inning to get his saves, which is where the huge difference lies. Of those 24 blown saves, Sutter coughed up nine of them in outings of two innings of more. In fact Sutter took a blown save in one game where he pitched five innings.

When was the last time Brad Lidge went more than three outs to get a save? Try July 6, 2006.

No, closers aren’t asked to do too much these days, which is probably why the blown save stands out so much. The game is so defined by roles and managerial moves so compartmentalized and beholden to statistical data that there is much more pressure on everyone. If the manager deviates from the norm he is questioned and if the closer can’t walk that tight rope night after night without tripping up, people call for his head.

One inning to define failure or success.

Only a handful of relief pitchers won the Cy Young Award and even fewer were awarded the MVP. One of the guys who got both in the same season was Rollie Fingers who helped pitch the Milwaukee Brewers into the playoffs in the strike-shortened 1981 season. However, in just 47 appearances and 34 save chances, Fingers nailed down just 28.

Of course he pitched 78 innings and had a 1.04 ERA, which means the nine runs he allowed that season led to those eight blown saves.

There are more examples, too. Remember when Steve Bedrosian was saving games every time he came into a game for the Phillies in 1987? Yeah, well he blew eight of his 48 chances, too, and still got the Cy Young Award.

In 1974 Mike Marshall of the Dodgers won the Cy Young Award even though he had 21 saves in 33 chances. Yes, that’s right… that’s 12 blown saves. Of course he appeared in 106 games and racked up over 200 innings all in relief.

Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young for the Yankees in 1977 and there was a lot of talk about how relievers weren’t worthy of such an honor. After all, Lyle had just 26 saves and 13 wins with eight blown saves. Of course he finished 60 games and averaged nearly two innings per outing, so he kept busy.

My favorite of all workhorse closers is Goose Gossage who was charged with 10 blown saves in 36 chances in 1977 in his only season in Pittsburgh. That season Goose picked up 16 saves when he pitched more than two innings, including four of three innings or longer and one four inning save.

Goose also had blown saves of four and five innings each in 1977. That’s nothing compared to Goose’s first year with the Yankees where he took two blown saves in a seven-inning outings and had five blown saves when he pitched three innings or longer.

Only 10 of Goose’s saves were three-inning jobs in 1978.

Lidge, on the other hand, has appeared in 57 games this season but only accumulated 50 1/3 innings. The last time he pitched more than an inning was late in the 2007 season when he got ahem a blown save.

Still, I have talked to closers about going more than one inning in save situations and even brought up Gossage’s efforts in 1977 and 1978 and they usually look at me like I have two heads. Only Brett Myers seemed interested in coming in before the ninth inning for a save chance, but that was when he was healthy.

No, I’m not saying stretching out the closer by asking him to do more work is the answer. In fact, it’s clear the modern day pitcher can’t handle the work load that the relievers of a generation ago piled on. But I am saying there is much more pressure on guys like Lidge these days. The fact that closers have absolutely no wiggle room at all makes Lidge’s 2008 season that much more impressive.

Moreover, closers like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman walked that precarious ledge for decades and somehow have come out on the other end lauded as the best ever at the role.

Yeah, the current-day closer has more pressure and is expected to be practically robotic, but there’s something cool about the best reliever coming into a game in the seventh inning and throwing heat to every hitter in the lineup.

It was a simpler game back then – for better or worse.

Meet me in St. Louis?

I like to tell this story, which is about to become obsolete this week. In all of these years of covering and writing about sports, I have been to exactly two All-Star Games. One was the 2002 NBA All-Star Game at the Wachovia Center. As I recall, I watched the first quarter of the game, saw Michael Jordan miss a dunk and Ali and Joe Frazier sit together at courtside, and took off. That was enough.

The other All-Star Game was the eighth grade CYO spectacular where our Sacred Heart squad turned out a 2009 Phillies-esque representation at the game. This one I stuck around to the end, started the game and had a game-high 12 points.

But this year I could avoid the Major League All-Star Game no more. After years of watching – dating back to the 1978 game – I’m actual going to witness this made-for-TV event. Call it a behind-the-scenes look at the bastardization and corporatization of our beloved game.

You know, all the things that everyone loves.

As such, certainly the big guns in baseball will be in St. Louis this week. We’ll have the self-important national media types as and league officials as well as a cadre of Hall of Famers and celebrities like Rollie Fingers and Alyssa Milano.

See, who would want to miss that.

Of course Ryan Howard will be in the worst of all made-for-TV travesties called the Home Run Derby where ESPN is required to show 35 commercials for every meatball of a pitch thrown and offer Chris Berman at his most nauseating.

Listening to Chris Berman is a lot like trying to put your entire fist into your mouth. Not only is it difficult and a tremendous waste of time, but if you succeed and get those knuckles past an incisor and/or molar and actually get your fist in your mouth, you know… then what?

All you are is some jackass sitting there in front of the TV with your fist in your mouth… how are you going to get it out?

My advice? Don’t listen to Berman — turn down the sound if you must. And please, for the love of all that’s holy, do not put your fist in your mouth.

Regardless, watching this show from inside of the ballpark-turned-TV studio will be a hoot. Veteran ball scribes say the Monday before the All-Star Game is the longest work day ever. It’s even longer than busy days at the winter meetings, which just so happens to be every day at the winter meetings.

But since I write sentences about baseball for a living, the work doesn’t bother me. It gets busy and the days long, but so what. Baseball writers that complain about the work and the writing should go dig ditches or get a job as a stagehand for Chris Berman.

Anyway, as a veteran observer of the All-Star Game, here are some of the most memorable moments I have seen either with my eyes or through osmosis.

• Bo Jackson’s leadoff homer in 1989 Who didn’t love Bo Jackson? • That pre-game Ted Williams thing at Fenway in 1999 A couple of years later they cut off Ted’s head and froze it. They even named the MVP Award after Williams which is apt. Williams was the personification of the selfish ballplayer whose greatest on-the-field glory came in the All-Star Game. It certainly wasn’t the only World Series he played in. • The crazy 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland Tim Raines won this won for the NL with a two-run triple in the 13th – the only runs of the game. The American League almost won the game in the ninth when Phillie Steve Bedrosian nailed Dave Winfield attempting to score from second on a botched double play.

• Brad Lidge throwing 100 pitches in the bullpen According to Charlie Manuel the first rule of the All-Star Game is to return players back to their teams healthy. Maybe K-Rod ought to get his right arm limber for all those times he is going to warm up on Tuesday night.

• Pete Rose decking Ray Fosse Arguably the most famous play in All-Star Game history. This is the one where Rose bowled over Fosse in order to score the winning run in the 1970 game and separated the catcher’s shoulder. The thing about the play was Fosse never had the ball. He also spent the night before the game having dinner with Rose.

• Commissioner Bud Selig flapping his arms during extra innings of the 2002 game According to Charlie Manuel the first rule of the All-Star Game is to return players back to their teams healthy. Therefore, managers Joe Torre and Bob Brenly didn’t want to continue the game past the 11th inning when both teams ran out of pitchers. Forced with making a spontaneous decision in Milwaukee’s Miller Park, Selig freaked and flapped his arms like a pigeon attempting to leap over a mud puddle.

Aside from cancelling the 1994 season, the arm flapping was Selig’s most memorable moment.