Couch: Cubs' No-Hitter Suggests Sticky Stuff May Not Be The Problem After All
Let’s call this Revenge of the Pitchers. Earlier this week, baseball pitchers were throwing a tantrum over the idea that they were all cheating. I mean, they were, in fact, all cheating by putting sticky stuff on the ball. They don’t seem to deny that. But the indignity of having umpires check their gloves, hats and belts set them off anyway.
So Oakland A’s pitcher Sergio Romo dropped his pants in anger when an ump checked him. You think I’m hiding something? Go ahead and check! A bench-clearing fight nearly broke out when Philadelphia manager Joe Girardi accused Washington pitcher Max Scherzer of going to his hair to possibly put sticky stuff on the ball.
Well, the pitchers got their best revenge Thursday night in Los Angeles: The Chicago Cubs, using four pitchers, threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers.
Revenge is so sweet.
Batters simply cannot hit pitchers this year, and there threatens to be a league-wide record low batting average and high strikeout rate. That means a baseball game is now three long hours of nothing happening. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, in panic mode, put an end to that by cracking down on the cheating pitchers and instituting strip searches and cavity searches -- my words -- on pitchers to find Spider Tack and other glop that helps them get a better grip on the ball and do more with it.
That started this Monday. And without the goo?
Another no-hitter.
It was the seventh no-hitter of the season, tying the modern record. (In baseball, anything that has happened since 1900 is considered “modern.’’) The season isn’t even half over yet.
And the truth is, this was really the eighth no-hitter, but the league (stupidly) doesn’t count one that was thrown in a seven-inning game.
No-hitters are usually considered an incredible individual feat. Now, they just mark it as Thursday.
Cubs manager David Ross replaced starting pitcher Zach Davies with a pinch hitter in the seventh inning, when he had a no-hitter and a 3-0 lead, which struck me as ruining a great moment.
“I think every pitcher wants to continue in the game, regardless of his pitch count, but it worked. . .” Davies said. “A part of history. I’m excited for the guys that were on the field. I can’t complain at all.’’
Well, I can. You don’t take a guy out when he’s throwing a no-hitter. Not in a regular season game anyway. It’s true that he had thrown 94 pitches and probably wouldn’t have gotten through the final three innings. But can’t you just leave him in until he gives up one hit?
Maybe adrenaline would’ve kicked in or something.
But there was something good about it this way, too, considering the times. Davies is by no means a fireballer, throwing artificially fast fastballs because of a better grip on the ball from banned substances.
And the Cubs’ bullpen was supposed to be among the worst in baseball this year, but instead has been the best.
Other than closer Craig Kimbrel, the entire bullpen is a bunch of no-name guys. Reliever Andrew Chafin wears a t-shirt that says “Failed Starter.’’ And when baseball started its sticky-stuff crackdown this week, the Cubs used reliever Ryan Tepera, who threw a walk on four pitches with the ball going every which way. That made me wonder if the surprising success of the Cubs’ bullpen has been the result of cheating.
So when Davies threw the first six innings, Tepera the seventh, Chafin the eighth and Kimbrel the ninth Thursday, it seemed real somehow. The Cubs’ bullpen and even baseball’s run of no-hitters and strikeouts.
Of course, that brings the question: Is it possible that Spider Tack isn’t the issue we thought it was?
Maybe baseball’s obsession with analytics, showing that batters should be swinging for home runs all the time, is backfiring, and when you’re swinging as hard as you can, maybe you just miss more often. Maybe the obsession on launch angle has batters doing the wrong things. Maybe baseball’s incredible number of injuries has taken out a lot of the best hitters.
Also, maybe the pitching has just gotten better. Or course, cheating helps. And it’s also possible that the pitchers have just found a better hiding place.
But baseball needed to look into this stuff a little more before blaming it all on Spider Tack and searching and frisking players on the field, which screams out to fans: You’re watching something that is rigged.
“This is an awesome moment,” Davies said. “The World Series, I think something like that probably tops it. But even though it wasn’t solo and it was a combined effort, being a part of history is something special.’’
And sweet.