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By Jon Weisman
Dodger closer Steve Howe got the save in the final game of the 1981 World Series, but it was a save you have to rub your eyes and gawk at today.
The star-crossed lefty pitched the last 3 2/3 innings of the Dodgers’ 9-2 Game 6 victory over the Yankees. He threw 54 pitches, three nights after throwing 33 pitches in the final three innings of the Dodgers’ 8-7 Game 4 victory.
How Howe came to my mind today was simple: The Dodgers have a bonafide reliever supreme in Kenley Jansen, but he pitches in an era when it’s rare to see a closer get even four outs. Jansen hasn’t gone past that barrier since he pitched the final two innings of a 14-inning Dodger victory nearly 15 months ago, on July 10, 2013. He has pitched two innings 11 times in his career — never more than that, and none was a save opportunity.
Howlin’ Howe pitched at least two innings 11 times in the 1981 regular season alone, twice going three innings. Sometimes, he was rested, but in a week from May 9-15, for example, he pitched in five games, including a pair of two-inning saves in a three-day span.
However, Howe didn’t spend the entire ’81 postseason rattling off three-inning blitzes. He pitched exactly an inning four times in the first two rounds of the playoffs, then allowed two runs in a third of an inning in Game 2 of the 1981 World Series. The Dodgers basically cut loose on Howe when they knew there were few tomorrows remaining in the season.
Holistically, Howe represents not one but two aspects of a bygone era. One, of course, is the utter inattention to pitch counts. But another that’s more subtle but also extremely relevant is this: Perfection was not expected.
By the 1980s, the idea had been long established that you should have an elite pitcher ready to finish out games. Less entrenched, in my memory, was the intolerance of any sort of failure.
No one ever was happy when a closer blew a game in the 1980s, but there was a greater understanding that these things did happen. It’s sort of a chicken-and-egg thing — the more innings they pitched in a game, the greater chance there was of giving up runs. But it was still preferable to taking your chances on a subpar relief pitcher. Plus, your pitching staff was smaller, so you had fewer to share the innings.
We think of these games decades ago as macho times, when in reality, they were far more tolerant. Don’t get me wrong: Tom Niedenfuer remains a sore subject, 29 years after the Jack Clark home run, and even Ralph Branca is remembered by younger fans for nothing more than being the yikes to Bobby Thomson’s yank.
But Branca was pitching on October 3, 1951 because he was considered the best possible option, not even 48 hours after he had pitched eight innings (135 pitches, not that anyone was counting then) in the Dodgers’ penultimate loss to the Giants.
Niedenfuer was in his third inning of work in Game 6 of the 1985 NLCS when he allowed Clark’s home run. When Orel Hershiser, pitching with a 4-1 lead, got in trouble with one out in top of the seventh inning, giving up two runs and putting the tying run on base, Tommy Lasorda did not pass go; he did not collect Bobby Castillo, Carlos Diaz, Rick Honeycutt, Ken Howell or Jerry Reuss.
Lasorda went straight to the pitcher who in the previous game had given up the first left-handed home run of Ozzie Smith’s career to take the loss, who had also pitched a 2 2/3-inning save in Game 1 of the 1985 NLCS. He went to The Guy.
And as much as the Clark home run has soured Dodger fans’ memory of someone who is legitimately one of the top relievers the team has had in Los Angeles — Niedenfuer has the team’s second-best adjusted ERA among relievers with at least 400 innings — the debate over the home run to this day is less about whether Niedenfuer should have been pitching than about who he should have pitched to. (See Chapter 16 of “100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die” to understand why Lasorda made the right decision.)
Some balance is probably in order. Pitch counts do matter, and pitchers can lose effectiveness when they are overused. I will bet my house that you’re not aware that Clark’s home run came on Niedenfuer’s 50th pitch of the game.
At the same time, I do think that if the seat weren’t so hot for managers and closers who don’t protect every single lead, the reward ultimately might be more of the pitcher you really wanted to see. The more you widen the opportunity for success, the less you stoke the pain of failure.
It’s unrealistic to expect Kenley Jansen to start throwing two or three innings a game, not in 2014, not in the first of three rounds of playoffs and not when most of the world seems to take more pleasure in the blame game than the game itself. But can the Dodgers push the envelope a bit more with Jansen? I believe so.
Michael Green
Jon, I’d like your opinion. Bill James, who is right far less often than he thinks he is, has said that the closer should come in when the game is on the line, not to “close” the game in the 9th. Thus, to pick a situation, under this theory, Kenley would have come in Friday night in the 7th, pitch that inning, and then be done. Or last night, we might have been better off with him taking over for Greinke (I’m not saying that we would have been, but as an example) in the 8th instead of waiting for the 9th. Do you buy into this, and how do we deal with it statistically?
Jon Weisman
I’ve always felt you should use the best pitcher in the most crucial situation, independent of the inning. Whether he gets an actual save should be irrelevant.
Here’s a shorter example of my views. http://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/189421.html
artieboy
I agree that Jansen should have been brought in during the 7th. If not instead of Baez then as soon as Baez walked the batter before Holliday. But that is on the manager believing he has to save his closer for the 9th inning.
Doing that in the regular season is one thing, doing that in the post season is something else. You manage differently in the playoffs.
artieboy
In other words Tommy went to his best reliever to bail out Hershiser and it worked! Mattingly couldn’t do the same :(
Michael Green
Thanks–and I’m not surprised you had already discussed it, and done it in, as usual, a very thoughtful and cogent way. By the way, I realized that in my attempt to take Bill James back to earth, I neglected to say that I completely agreed with him, and with you.
artieboy
Branca was in the game because Dressen (for the one and only time that season) didn’t make the change himself, rather he allowed Clyde Sukforth, who was in the pen warming up both pitchers select who should come in. Suky was forever shocked that Dressen allowed him to make the decision. I can’t remember who the other reliever was. But Dressen refused to bring in anyone to start the 9th.
oldbrooklynfan
I think luck plays a big part in all things that are important. Everything is a guess. If you guess wrong things go wrong. If you guess right everything works out the way you want it to. The past helps but you can’t base everything on it.
Michael Green
Artieboy, it was Carl Erskine, and he had just bounced a curve (remember that he had arm trouble throughout his career). Oisk later said that may have been his best pitch ever.
Campy had a bad leg and Rube Walker was catching because Campy couldn’t have covered all of the foul territory. Red Barber later asked Dressen what he would do differently and he said he would have left Newcombe in and brought Campanella in to catch because he would have gotten Newk through the rest of the game. I don’t think that should be seen as a criticism of Newcombe or of Walker, and Newk had pitched eight fine innings and worked hard all year.
artieboy
So much for a freeway series