Old Men With No Rest
Posted by Raphy on October 18, 2009
After closing out game 1 for the Yankees, Mariano Rivera came back in game 2 and pitched 2 and 1/3 innings of shutout ball. Rivera is no longer a young kid, as he is well on his way to his 40th birthday. This made me wonder, what was the longest postseason appearance by a pitcher at least 39 years of age who was working on no rest. (I'll admit that it is a bit contrived, but I was curious.) Using the Pitching Gamelog Finder we get this list:
Cnt AgeY.D Player Date Series G Tm Opp GmReslt App,Dec **IP** H R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP ERA +----+------+-----------------+-------------+------+-+---+----+-------+---------+--------+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+ 1 39.226 Pete Alexander 1926-10-10 WS 7 STL @NYY W 3-2 7-9f ,S 2.1 0 0 0 1 1 0 3 0 7 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0.00 2 39.021 Tony Fossas 1996-10-14 NLCS 5 STL ATL L 0-14 5-6 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 20 12 0 0 7 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.50 3 39.045 Jerry Staley 1959-10-05 WS 4 CHW @LAD L 4-5 7-8f ,L 2 1 1 1 0 2 1 0 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.50 4 42.010 Dennis Eckersley 1996-10-13 NLCS 4 STL ATL W 4-3 8-9f ,W 1.1 1 0 0 0 2 0 16 11 1 0 5 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 5 39.172 Jesse Orosco 1996-10-10 ALCS 2 BAL @NYY W 5-3 7-8 ,H 1.1 1 0 0 0 1 0 19 14 2 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 6 40.167 Larry Andersen 1993-10-20 WS 4 PHI TOR L 14-15 7-8 1.1 2 3 3 1 2 0 26 14 0 0 7 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20.25
Rivera's age was 39.322. Of course, the chart is a bit misleading, as there is no comparison between Rivera's game and Alexander's. Alexander had pitched a complete game the day before and returned the following day to throw his 2.1 innings to save game 7 of the World Series! Not bad for an old man.
October 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Of course, Pete Alexander played during the era of pitchers who could actually pitch, athletes who could do what they were trained to do. Nowadays, pitchers are such weak and fragile specimens that the very thought of throwing a ball for the 101st time on any given day sends one to the hospital...
Sorry, did I derail into the beginnings of a rant to how pitchers are so painfully mismanaged nowadays? My bad.
October 18th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Normally, I miss having new entries on the weekends. But today, I came and found 4 new entries since I was last here on Friday. Of course, all of them are Yankees-do-good-inspired. I'd rather have found NO new entries than 4 new ones that were ALL Yankees-do-good-inspired.
Of course, I could have come and found lists of all post season games in which Pedro Martinez went at least 7 innings in a quality start, and his team still lost. Or a list of all postseason games in which a team's first run was scored as a result of an errant throw on a double play completion attempt. The OTHER postseason series has featured both of these situations, including the latter one in both games. While it was great that Pedro looked so good, my favorite team, the Phillies, still came out on the short end. And of course, they also threw away those would-be double play balls.
How about a list of every postseason game in which every run was scored as a result of a multi-RBI extra base hit, minimum three such hits? Such as, the team scores 8 runs on two 3-run homers and one 2-run double.
October 18th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
DD - thanks for your polite suggestions. I didn't notice any of things you mentioned happening during last night's game, which is when I had time to post, but I'll try to address them anyway.
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/KtJAJ
Not a very lengthy list.
Perhaps, you would prefer this list of the career leaders:
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/Z7jqK
Then again, there aren't many Phillies there, so maybe not.
I can't think of a way to do that easily in PI. I try to only do more extensive research for questions that I find interesting. My guess is that very few people care about the way in which the first run of a game scores.
Interesting question. Impossible with PI.
October 18th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
what is most amusing about zuty's comment is that baseball fans were saying the EXACT SAME THING about pitchers in alexander's day -- how the pitchers of the 1920s did not and could not match up to the hurlers around the turn of the century.
October 18th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I want to apologize for spouting off earlier. I could see the black-patch World Series fading away with those two Yankee victories, especially last night, and it added to my frustration. I didn't realize until recently that the Angels were also wearing a patch for Preston Gomez this year, in addition to one for Nick Adenhart. The Phillies are wearing one for long-time broadcaster Harry Kalas.
October 18th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Not a problem. I'm sure that tonight's game is making up for it.