@alwaysamom:
Ah, yes, the famous Gene Mauch, one of the worst managers in baseball. His penumbra is quite wide, it is influencing the NY mets of today. Dan Worthan, the Mets pitching coach, was a young pitching phenom in the mid 70’s, he was on the Expos team that was being managed by, yep, Mauch…and Mauch burned out everyone of the starting pitchers on that team, he had pitchers pitching 130,140 pitch games, and all of them never reached their potential. It is why Worthen is so cautious with the Mets young pitchers, he doesn’t want them to be Mauch-Ized as he was.
@gloworm: The cubs will make it, they have the magician, Joe Madden:). If the Mets bomb in the playoffs and the cubs advance, I’ll be rooting for the cubs!
@garland: What I said was half tongue in cheek, and half what I think of the Wilpons. If the Mets were doing things like benching key players, putting in players like Kirk Nuewenheiss as starters every day, bringing in O’Flaherty to close games, then yeah (though you could argue that with limiting the starting pitching to 6 innings and getting the bullpen in, who have blown quite a few games, it is part of this, but even I don’t think that, though why they hang on to O’flaherty is beyond me). When you see both the starting pitching wobbling, and the hitting becoming a wasteland again, it is hard not to think here we go again…hopefully it is just that they are tired and also not feeling the heat (maybe they are subconsciously thinking they already have it clinched), but it looks a lot like the collapses under Manuel and Randolph. Terry Collins is known for getting a lot out of his players (his decision making on the other hand can be questioned), so hopefully he will get them fired up. It is hard to watch them play a team like the Marlins or Philly, who obviously are motivated as spoilers, and see them revert to what we saw earlier this year, relying on pitching giving up at most a run or two.
If the Cubs and Pirates tie for the wild card, then the Cubs will have home field advantage for the wild card game, since they won the head to head series against the Pirates.
(and there are faint hopes that if the Cubs can beat the Cards today, then the Cards may be able to be over taken by either the Pirates or the Cubs. Unfortunately, the Cards are winning 4-3 going into the top of the 9th).
And the Blue Jays lose again. If the Yankees win tonight, then they’re only 2 games out in the loss column going into their three-game series in Toronto. (Of course, Tanaka’s hamstring injury suffered running the bases on Friday doesn’t help one bit. Stupid National League rules.)
Go Nats!!!
Sigh. Nats are making me nervous. Since Mets have forgotten how to score.
And @DonnaL, Tanaka was playing BASEBALL, not National League rules. It’s the American League who decided to remake baseball. Maybe we should have defense and offense, like football?
@garland:
Still think I am paranoid? It is good they are scoring tonight, but explain to me pulling Niese after 6 good innings to put in the bullpen that has been pretty bad recently…:). I also think that the Mets should do a Steinbrenner, and they should shut Harvey down and lock him out of the post season, they don’t really need him, they have 4 decent pitchers they can use in the post season, and it would be a massive you know what to both Harvey and his ego, and to Boras, it is known as give them what they wanted (he is close to 180 now). What is bad is even if the mets make it, they are losing ground to the dodgers, which means the dodgers will have decided home field advantage, something the mets should fear.
Speaking of shutting down, they had an interesting fact on the radio today. In September, 1969, when the Mets were in their pennant chase against the Cubs, Seaver and Koosman between them had 11 complete games. Sorry, but it where I agree with the old guard types, I don’t think that the modern crap with a ton of relief pitchers and treating pitchers like they are made of thin glass is a great way togo, while a lot of pitchers were abused (see my post about Dan Warthen and that genius Gene Mauch), but this whole specialist nonsense hasn’t made the game any better IMO, it has just led to prima donna pitchers pitching half a game. On the other hand, Colon is just a freak of nature, must be the cuban sandwiches he and cespades prob eat together.
David Price continues to be amazing. 8 and 1 as a Jay, 17 and 5 for the season. Lowest ERA in the AL. Retired 14 straight Yankees tonight. Jays win 4-2 and are up 3 1/2 games.
I think Price pretty much has the Cy Young locked up; he’s surpassed Keuchel at this point. Time for the Yankees to prepare for that wild card game, because I think they will be fortunate to split the next two and stay 3.5 out.
I’m just happy the Mets won, but they left too many on base and didn’t hit well with RISP, a problem for them earlier in the season. I’m not confident, that even if we make the playoffs, that we’ll have home field vs. Dodgers, altho I haven’t checked to see who the Dodgers play the rest of the season. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
@DonnaL, I follow the Yankees very closely and sadly I think you are right - - wild card here we come! I keep hoping someone unseats the Astros because frankly the last time I watched the Yankees against Keuchel it was frightening.
And I’m with you on NL rules. I wish MLB would pick one set of rules or the other. AL pitchers aren’t practiced or conditioned to hit, and then they end up injured. Or they don’t even try to run (and who can blame them).
Personally, I find NL baseball less compelling. I want to see people hit. With the DH, that’s one more power bat. Without the DH, not only do the pitchers usually perform poorly at the plate with a few exceptions (Madison Bumgarner!), but half the time, the number 8 batter in the lineup gets walked to get to the pitcher. So that’s 2 out of 9 that really don’t actually hit a good portion of the time. The pitchers are advantaged as it is in the post-steroid era, so would prefer to go with a DH and up the chances of more hits.
I like the NL version because it creates more complexity in the managing. I don’t want things simplified. At some point, many positions could have a better hitter than the one playing in the field.
Baseball got along many years with the older rules. I’d just as soon we got rid of interleague play, rather than playing a simplified version in the AL parks.
@musicprnt --seriously? They shut out the Braves. Would you like them to go for negative runs? 
As far as how they treat pitchers these days, it’s epidemic across baseball, and I don’t think it comes from coddling so much as how much they pitch as kids --baseball was not a year-round game when Seaver and Koosman were young, but it is now. Plus, they throw breaking pitches too young. I think they are setting themselves up for injury by the way the kids are played now.
That being said, I agree with Gary Cohen who referred to Boras’s “junk science.” Harvey looks incapable of figuring it out for himself. I can’t tell what his actual motives and alliances as a player are. I’d just as soon trade him now; I think he’s going to be trouble for as long as he’s here, and we have so many other good to great pitchers who want to play.
The only problem with your explanation that kids play baseball year round is that Matt Harvey is from CT where he couldn’t play baseball year round. I do agree that there’s too much specialization in kids’ sports at way too early an age.
@garland:
Of course I wasn’t serious, it was said tongue in cheek (mostly).I also saw what Terry Collins said in the news conference, after taking Harvey out after 5, he was pissed, it is clear he isn’t happy about this situation. As far as beating Atlanta, well, that doesn’t exactly take a lot, they very well could lose 100, they are godawful…
In terms of pitching things have changed, for one thing there is kind of a reverse darwinism here. Back then, pitcher burned out his arm, he was gone, now we have Tommy John surgery that has almost become de rigeur, and then you have the innings limits because of that. The pitchers who survived without burning out their arms, like Nolan Ryan, simply were strong enough that they could pitch complete games and a lot of innings, survival of the fittest.
The other factor is that kids today playing the game don’t pitch complete games, even in the minors, everyone has a ton of relievers (back then, you didn’t have the 7th and 8th inning guys, you didn’t have the righty-lefty one player pitching, and it is only the last 40 years, thanks to Suter and Fingers and eckersley and Gossage and Lyle that closers became a big time speciality. Relief pitching before that generally were players who they also would use for starting, they would put the crap pitchers in for mop up, they would have some others for middle inning.but also look at the stats on complete games, relievers were not used that often, lot of time it would be started going all the way, or maybe 8 innings, then closer…so kids never develop the stamina.
The other factor is the velocity on these pitches, 40 years ago Ryan was throwing near 100 and was considered a rarity, to say the least, today a lot of pitchers are in the upper 90’s. Ryan was an outlier, because he would throw like that for 9 innings. By having pitchers go only 6 or 7, they can throw harder, they don’t have to pace themselves, but that also I think leads to injuries, too.
BTW, they actually did studies about kids throwing breaking balls, there was a study several years ago, and basically it turns out to be a common myth
@shellfell players from the northern climates still go to gyms and pitch in batting cages. It may not be a true game, though they are still using their arms in the same way and setting themselves up for more injuries.
I think injury and health will be the next big data analytics push where they will at least attempt to quantify what can and cannot be done safely with pitching staff, but people are so individual that it will be a tough nut to crack.
Love seeing all the discussion and great insights on how pitching has evolved. I think that’s partly why I prefer AL baseball. With the stellar relief pitching available, it really is tougher to hit now. But I could live happily with just limiting interleague play to the playoffs.
Yay!!!
@garland:
I don’t know, you think maybe Boras told Harvey he better pitch more than 4 innings or fans would label him a complete wuss, or kick Boras’ $(((%! in? lol. What is that old CSN song lyric, been a loong, tiiime, coming? Be interesting to see if they try to clinch home field advantage or if they coast the next week to let players rest. One funny comment on local sports radio, they said it won’t matter where they face Grenke and Kershaw, they would kill teams on a little league field or the old polo grounds (500 foot centerfield fence). I am hoping that they line it up so syntergaard faces grenke, the battle of Thor versus Thor:)
I am also happy the cubs got in, I love Joel Madden, I hope they advance, the man is a certified genius. Hopefully they will make certain to have a goat day at Wrigley before the end of the season, they need to wipe out the curse:)
I’ve decided I don’t care if they have homefield advantage or not–they play so well on the road. I’m just going to bask in this now, and worry about the details later.