It’s just about reflex now, for any major league manager: you have a lead in the ninth inning of three runs or fewer, you call on your closer, no matter how well the starting pitcher has done. An article of faith, really, challenged by almost no one.
83 Pitches: Should Ryan Dempster Have Completed His Win?
Tuesday night in Chicago, Cubs manager Mike Quade had a real choice to make. Ryan Dempster had breezed through the first eight innings against the Giants, throwing just 78 pitches (fewer than 10 per inning) and giving up just a pair of doubles; both runners were stranded and when the Cubs took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the eighth, Quade let Dempster start the ninth.
Pat Burrell led off the inning, batting for Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt. Dempster ran the count to 2-2 on him, and then Burrell doubled off the wall in left field.
So what do you do here? Dempster has thrown 83 pitches -- many starters these days can throw that many in five innings. Your team has a 1-0 lead and hasn't won many games, but throwing a complete-game shutout is special. No Cub has thrown one since Dempster himself threw a five-hit gem over the Pirates on September 29, 2009. In fact, that was the last CG thrown by a Cubs pitcher in a win; Dempster also threw the last Cubs CG of any kind, an eight-inning complete game in a 2-0 loss to the Mariners in Seattle on June 22, 2010.
Since 2000, there have been 46 major league games in which a pitcher threw at least eight innings with 83 pitches or fewer, about four per season. Of those, just seven wound up as complete-game, nine-inning victories. Seven others were CG, eight-inning defeats. Of the other 32, 22 wound up with the starter removed and his team winning the game with him getting the "W"; four were lost by the bullpen after the starter was lifted, five others -- including Tuesday night's -- were won by the team after a blown save, and in just one (on May 25, 2008 between the Angels and White Sox, when John Lackey was allowed to throw the bottom of the ninth in a tie game in Chicago, did such a starter lose a nine-inning CG).
So Quade was clearly playing the odds when he called on Carlos Marmol to protect the 1-0 lead even though Dempster did not want to come out:
“I wanted to give him a shot. A walk or an extra-base hit in that situation, and I think I got to get Marmol in the game. A single? Maybe you let him try to pitch through it, at least another hitter,” Quade said, adding he knew Dempster wanted to finish.
“I don’t blame him, short of fighting me. It’s a whole different animal if the pitch count is higher. He wants to finish the thing, and I want to bring a guy in that situation who is there regularly. Deep down, I don’t want him losing that game, in spite of the pitch count. He didn’t get a win. That’s not going to take away from the performance.”
Marmol promptly blew the save, but was bailed out when the Cubs rallied and won in the last of the ninth on an Aramis Ramirez pinch-single, his first pinch-hit (in his first PH appearance) of the year.
So what would you do in that situation? Leave Dempster in? Or call on your closer? Cast your vote below.
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