There is nothing quite as frustrating as continuing to hear whining about Slowey's no hitter that wasn't. And I thought the whining was limited to the uneducated masses.
I guess not.
The post is comical if you forget the fact that this is posted on the website of KFAN, possibly the most recognizable sports radio station in Minnesota. Actually, it still is pretty comical:
I am shocked at how many people are buying into this pitch count crap. The pitch count has been worse for baseball than the steroid era. There have only been 268 no-hitters in the history of the game, and the freaking pitch count stood between Kevin Slowey and number 269.
This is Kevin Slowey we're talking about, right? To say that the "freaking pitch count" is the only thing that stood in the way of Slowey and baseball immortality, one must ignore quite a few things:
1. First of all, it was only the seventh inning. That Slowey was able to no-hit the Athletics as far as he did spoke more to Oakland's ability to hit than anything. Slowey is the epitome of the Twins' pitch-to-contact mentality. Well, I guess that's not entirely true, but nonetheless Slowey doesn't get too many strikeouts with his 86.1% contact rate in 2010. Compound that with his 1.25 WHIP in the 8th and 9th innings. Oh, and let's throw on his career .379 batting average-against after pitch #100, and you have several reasons to doubt that Slowey's no-hit bid was a given.
2. This is not a team that can risk injuries over trying to make baseball history (and we've already discussed the improbability of it). While not the same situation, consider the injury to Francisco Liriano. Liriano simply threw his slider too much and the 2006 campaign changed quickly from a 12-3 thrashing of any opponent to an 18-month recovery from Tommy John surgery followed by two seasons of attempting to find his form again. Great pitchers don't grow on trees, even if San Francisco's trade (Nathan, Liriano, and that one time Boof was a good pitcher) made it seem like they do. Ron Gardenhire knew firsthand the consequences of an elbow injury, and that's why you don't mess around with it, even amidst the potential of being the 269th no-hitter.
3. The Twins sent up seven men to the plate in the bottom of the 7th en route to scoring three insurance runs. There were two pitching changes. Slowey would no longer have been loose after what was probably a 15 minute inning. It's akin to why you don't bring your starter back in after a rain delay.
Let's quit buying into this pitch count garbage and man up like Nolan Ryan is making his pitchers do down in Texas. His philosophy seems to be working just fine. And don't waste your time playing the tendonitis card. Tendonitis is easily healed with short periods of rest... just like the last period of rest Slowey received. He missed one game and bounced back pretty well from it, wouldn't you agree?
I'll just leave this here.
Average pitches per outing, Texas starters:
Colby Lewis (23 starts), 108 pitches / game
CJ Wilson (24 starts), 106 pitches / game (most are in the 110 range)
Scott Feldman (16 starts), 105 pitches / game
Cliff Lee (8 starts as Ranger), 103 pitches / game
Rich Harden (15 starts), 97 pitches / game, only six starts above 100 pitches
Tommy Hunter (13 starts), 83 pitches / game, only three above 100
I guess it's true that any idiot can have a blog. And that's why I'm here too.
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