Now you bring in a Molina brother?”ĭEMPSTER: “Right? What are we doing? We don’t value a shutout anymore. So it used to be that when your team was pitching a shutout, you’d leave the starter in, or you’d bring Mariano Rivera in. Yadi came in a couple of weeks ago with his team pitching a shutout. The arc of his eephus pitch really matches up to the bat plane of this guy’s swing. Maybe they see his stuff, and they’re like, ‘Hey, he’s got a pretty good spin rate on his breaking ball. What’s going on with that?”ĭEMPSTER: “Maybe he’s got a better arm. Now when a team is winning, it brings in the left fielder. W&W: “You know, it used to be when a team was winning, it would bring in the closer. I think it might be overthinking.”īy that, Dempster means what a lot of pitchers from his generation would say - that the real pitchers on these teams are physically capable of pitching more than they’re asked to pitch, and maybe some of these teams should try that. But you know what? I don’t think that it’s deep thinking.
RYAN DEMPSTER: “Well, I really hope the world’s not ending. So is this just a sign that deep thinking has kicked in? Or is the world ending as we used to know it?” Five position players have finished games that their teams won. WEIRD AND WILD: “I want you to help me think this through. So I’ve called in the assistance of my friend Ryan Dempster - creative thinker, hilarious human, Marquee Sports Network Cubs analyst and, in a previous life, a man who once led the National League in games finished (with the 2006 Cubs). What I couldn’t do on my own, however, was decide what to make of this. I’m also declaring myself the sole judge and jury of what constitutes a “true position player” (namely, not somebody who pitched 10 or 15 other times that season). No, I’m confining this to only nine-inning games. So … is that Weird and Wild enough for you? Just to be clear, in those 95 years, I’m not even counting your assorted Chris Davises and Wilson Valdezes who did that sort of thing in, like, the 17th inning.
(*-score when they threw their first pitch) And now it’s happened five times in the last three weeks. Oh, just that, by our calculations, that had happened only five times in the previous 95 seasons. So I guess it’s up to us to reveal this pivotal breaking news:įive times already this season, teams have brought in position players in the ninth inning to get the final outs of games they’re winning.
Stuff like …Ī bizarre 2022 trend that suddenly has busted out en masse - but has been noticed by pretty much nobody, except, of course, the Weird and Wild column. But I also do it because it calls my attention to stuff I could easily miss. I do that in part because I write a Weird and Wild column. (Yep, seriously.) Then I write down how they did in a special little notebook. Is the closer wearing shin guards?įor more than 20 years, I’ve been doing something that no normal person should ever do.Įvery day, I watch for position players who trudge to the old pitcher’s mound. … And if you were a manager named Joe, uhhhh, it was kind of a rough week.īut sometimes, here at the Weird and Wild column, we need to spot the big trends before you, Ken Burns and even Ken Rosenthal. … Also, the only shortstop who didn’t hit a slam for the Giants was Rich Aurilia. … And a guy who happens to be bigger than Draymond Green hit a leadoff home run. But allow me to catch you up on what you might have missed.Ī guy singled into a triple play. Not sure what you were watching besides baseball this week.
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