The greatest pitchers’ duel that never was

The setup was perfect. Probably too perfect, as it turned out: all we had was an opening game showdown between the two-time defending National League Cy Young Award winner against the former American League Cy Young Award winner, who’s finished in the top five for AL CYA voting each of the past four years and will almost certainly take this season’s National League Cy Young Award.

Not good enough? Well, then how about the fact that each was coming off a lights-out brilliant performance in the opening game of the preceding series, a two-hit, one-walk, 14-strikeout shutout on the one hand, and a one-walk-away-of-a-perfect-game on the other. Thus we can all be excused for looking forward to the Pitchers’ Duel of the Century.

But one might say that nothing in baseball is that easy, or at least that predictable. Neither Tim Lincecum nor Roy Halladay turned out to be quite at the top of his game last night, as each was touched for a couple of dingers and neither reached the eighth inning. Yet perhaps the true measure of an ace is how he handles the situation when he doesn’t have his best stuff, and both of these aces met that test wonderfully, as both battled gallantly, bending but never breaking, each keeping his team right in the tight ballgame through seven.

To be fair to both, they had to contend with a major squeeze job from home plate umpire Derryl Cousins, whose strike zone generally seemed to assume that every batter was Eddie Gaedel. Both pitchers demonstrated some visible frustration with this circumstance, especially (and perhaps surprisingly) the 33-year-old veteran Halladay.

Maybe the most interesting wrinkle to the entirely well-played and richly entertaining game was the fact that both of the long balls surrendered by Halladay came off the bat off the knockabout 29-year-old journeyman Cody Ross. The Giants are the fifth major league team for Ross, and when they unceremoniously acquired him as a waiver-wire spare part in late August they surely had no expectation he’d be playing this sort of role. In fact, the Giants picked up Ross not because they felt they had a need for him, but only to prevent the San Diego Padres, whom San Francisco was then trailing in the NL West Division, from grabbing him.

Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy made scant use of Ross in his first few weeks with the team, deploying him as little more than a defensive replacement. But when Andres Torres went down with appendicitis in mid-September, Ross got the opportunity to make a few starts in center field, and his bat started to heat up. In the postseason, Bochy has finally decided to make Ross his primary right fielder, and both against Atlanta and so far now against Philadelphia, this unassuming role player appears to be the one Giant swinging the bat consistently well.

So it goes in this most unpredictable of sports. Tonight’s starting pitcher matchup is between Roy Oswalt, whose ERA over the final month of the regular season was 1.31, and Jonathan Sanchez, whose mark over that span was 1.01. Therefore we should apparently anticipate a 10-9 slugfest.


Steve Treder has been a co-author of every Hardball Times Annual publication since its inception in 2004. His work has also been featured in Nine, The National Pastime, and other publications. He has frequently been a presenter at baseball forums such as the SABR National Convention, the Nine Spring Training Conference, and the Cooperstown Symposium. When Steve grows up, he hopes to play center field for the San Francisco Giants.
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MikeS
13 years ago

Maybe it’s silly of me but FOX’s ads really turned me off to this game. The greatest pitchers duel in the history of post season baseball? Really? i didn’t search retrosheet but that’s a long time and a lot of really good pitchers. The Phillies have the most feared lineup in baseball? Maybe but the Yankees may have something to say about that.

Honestly, not everything has to be the greatest thing ever in order to be compelling. The man at bat is probably not the best ever (or even best currently in the league) at anything. That scoop by the first baseman or throw by the shortstop has probably been done before. It’s just so tiring. A game can be compelling without being historic and not all games are compelling or historic just because they are important. Plenty of post season games have been deadly dull featuring errors, walks, poor managing and any number of things that make them less than the best thing ever. We already watch the game hoping to see something unique, knowing we probably won’t. There’s really no need to try to nail our feet to the floor, stuff a funnel down our throats and try to shove the awesome down our throats.

Nato Coles
13 years ago

Hey MikeS, there have only ever been nine postseason matchups between Cy Young winners in the history of baseball*.  That’s pretty rare.  FOX’s ads were dumb, but almost all ads are dumb.  The historical signifance of the night could not be overstated.

*that is, if Joe Posnanski is to be believed:  http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2010/10/night-of-pitcher.html#more