Tough
Guys
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looked for additional tools to help them use starters and relievers in tandem. Some teams began tracking a starter’s “pitch count.” Please, don’t confuse this with “the count,” which tracks balls and strikes during an at
bat. The pitch count is the number of pitches a pitcher has thrown during a game. This number helps managers forecast not only when the starter may begin to tire, but also when a reliever might be needed to take over. How
do you know when a manager is considering a pitching change? Look to the stadium’s bullpen, where pitchers practice and prepare to come into the game. If you see a pitcher and catcher warming up during the game, the
manager is considering calling for a replacement.
In 1962, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Drysdale won the Cy Young Award, pitching’s highest honor. Drysdale pitched before relievers became common in the league, and he completed nineteen of the forty-one games
he started that year. This means he pitched from start to finish, no matter how many innings were needed to complete the game. The twenty-five-year-old starter also faced an exhausting 1,289 batters during 314 innings, both workhorse league records that year. Just to show how things changed, more than three decades later, Atlanta’s John Smoltz scored his own Cy Young Award. He completed six of his thirty-five starts in 1996, facing 995 batters in 254 innings. Drysdale looks like an Iron Man by comparison. That is, until you look further back. In 1904, the then-thirty-seven-year-old Cy Young started forty-one games, just like Drysdale did in ’62. However, Young finished all but one of his starts and faced 1,475 batters in 380 innings. Who’s a tough guy, now?. . .
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