[新聞] In Search of 20 Victories (NYTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/sports/baseball/10chass.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=baseball&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1157976519-uvcXyUcUh1akDkLocdfr8Q
On Baseball
In Search of 20 Victories
By MURRAY CHASS
Published: September 10, 2006
CALLING it a Monday massacre may be a bit melodramatic, but last Monday was
not a good day for pitchers trying to become 20-game winners. Steve Trachsel
of the Mets, Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs and Jason Marquis of the Cardinals
pitched for their 15th victories, and all lost. Curt Schilling, also with 14
victories, was supposed to pitch but did not because of an ailing shoulder.
Barry Zito of the Athletics, with 15 victories, also lost that day, and Jon
Garland of the White Sox and Chien-Ming Wang of the Yankees emerged from
their Monday starts with no-decisions.
But Zito had 15 victories and Garland and Wang 16 each and they had a
possible five starts left.
Last night, Wang and Garland, in the first of their remaining starts, joined
Johan Santana of the Twins as 17-game winners.
The subject of 20-game winners is relevant because this season could produce
a record-low number or maybe a record-tying low number. Except for the
strike-shortened seasons of 1981, ’94 and ’95, there has been at least one
20-game winner in the major leagues each season. The only season in which
only one pitcher won 20 was 1982, when Steve Carlton, then with the Phillies,
won 23 games.
There have been seasons when one league or the other had no 20-game winners.
Last season produced four 20-game winners.
Santana, who won 20 in 2004, is scheduled to go for his 18th today against
Detroit. He will have four other scheduled starts and will most likely make
all of the starts because the Twins need every victory they can get to reach
the playoffs. Randy Johnson of the Yankees and Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays
had each won 16 times and still had a chance for 20. But they could ill
afford to lose or miss any of their remaining starts, the way Trachsel,
Zambrano, Marquis and Schilling did last Monday.
Other pitchers who suffered setbacks last week en route to 20 were Kenny
Rogers of Detroit, a 15-game winner, who had a no-decision Wednesday and has
a maximum of four starts left, and Brad Penny of the Dodgers, who failed to
win his 16th against the Mets on Thursday and has four starts remaining.
On the flip side, Justin Verlander of the Tigers beat the Twins on Thursday
for No. 16 and has four starts left, and Joe Blanton of the Athletics gained
his 15th victory Wednesday and could make five more starts.
In Blanton’s case, his fifth start would be on the last day of the season,
and he may not pitch that day if the Athletics have clinched the American
League West title and will begin their division playoff series two days later.
Of the 10 pitchers who began the weekend with 15 or more victories, only
Halladay will not be affected by the possibility of pitching in the playoffs.
A 22-game winner in 2003, he can start five more games, and victories in four
of them would make him a r epeat 20-game winner.
Had the Blue Jays’ relief corps been kinder to Halladay, he could be a
20-game winner now. The bullpen has squandered late-inning leads six times in
Halladay’s starts, depriving him of a chance for more than 16 victories.
According to Elias Sports Bureau records, he is tied with John Smoltz of the
Braves for most leads lost by the bullpen.
Halladay, Smoltz and all of the other starters had no guarantee that had they
stayed in their games they would have succeeded in holding leads when the
relievers failed. But if the relievers had done their jobs, the starters
would have much more attractive won-lost records.
Some of the 14-game winners would have especially benefited. Zambrano, Derek
Lowe of the Dodgers, Kevin Millwood of the Rangers and Schilling have each
had four leads disappear after they left games. The bullpen cost Zito leads
three times, and Santana and Garland two each.
At the other end of that spectrum, Wang, Verlander and Blanton have suffered
no ill effects from relief efforts. Verlander was on target for winning 20
when he gained his 15th victory Aug. 21, but he lost his next start and had no decision in the next, forcing him to cut it close with five starts left. He won the first of the five Thursday.
Santana Is Perfect at Home
Besides pitching for his 18th victory today, Johan Santana will try to extend
his perfect record at the Metrodome. He has a 10-0 home record, and the Twins
have won all 15 of his starts there.
Compare Santana’s home record with that of some of the other leading
pitchers: Chien-Ming Wang, 10-2, and Randy Johnson, 7-6, at Yankee Stadium;
Jon Garland, 5-2 at U.S. Cellular Field; and Roy Halladay, 7-3 at Rogers
Center.
Santana, a 27-year-old left-hander, was tied for the major league lead in
victories (17), and led in earned run average (2.84) and strikeouts (219). He
is only two-thirds of an inning behind Halladay in innings pitched with 207.
According to the commissioner’s office quoting Elias Sports Bureau, the last
pitcher to lead the majors in all four categories was Sandy Koufax in 1966.
Santana pitched his most recent victory against Tampa Bay on Tuesday,
allowing no runs, two hits and one walk and striking out 12 in eight innings.
“It was the most dominating performance I’ve seen,” said Gerry Hunsicker,
a Devil Rays executive. “He had a live fastball that he could throw where he
wanted to anywhere in the strike zone, a well-above-average slider and an
above-average changeup. He just toyed with our lineup. It was a mismatch.”
Terry Ryan, the Twins’ general manager, who is responsible for Santana’s
presence in the rotation, sees him pitch more often and is no less impressed.
“There’s a lot of athlete in Santana,” Ryan said. “That helps his
mechanics and durability. It keeps him on a routine. He has three quality
pitches, he’s left-handed, he throws enough strikes, he’s a competitive
guy. All those things allow him to win games.”
Santana also has good damage control, Ryan said. “Even if he goes through a
rough inning, he can get out of it without giving up a lot of runs,” Ryan
explained. “He can strike you out with three different pitches. He can get
right-handers out. He’s mentally strong. He believes it’s his job to throw
nine innings. We keep an eye on him. We usually allow him to get to 110
pitches.”
Santana has a clone, 22-year-old Francisco Liriano, who is 12-3 but has not
pitched in a month because of arm trouble. Ryan said Liriano was scheduled to
make a minor league rehabilitation start yesterday, then start Wednesday for
the Twins.
Derek Jeter has had enough glory in his brilliant 11-year career with the
Yankees. Did he have to put himself in position to spoil American League
history?
Joe Mauer of Minnesota was on the way to becoming the first catcher to win
the A.L. batting title when Jeter jumped in his way. Mauer had led the league
since June 6, but his average slipped to .344 on Thursday, dropping him into
a tie with Jeter.
The A.L. does not need a shortstop to win the batting title. Shortstops
(Michael Young, Nomar Garciaparra, Alex Rodriguez) have won 4 of the last 10
titles, but no catcher has ever finished first.
Jeter, whose .349 average was second in the league to Garciaparra’s .357 in
1999, caught Mauer with a recent torrid streak. In his 10 games before
Friday, Jeter had 19 hits in 41 at-bats (.463), raising his average 10
points. Mauer, meanwhile, batted .220 (9 for 41) in his last 12 games,
dropping 17 points.
Mauer was hitting a season-high .392 on July 1 but had batted .276 since.
Technically, after his 1-for-4 game Thursday, his average was half a
percentage point better than Jeter’s, .34437 to .34387, but both round to
.344. In Friday’s games, Mauer reclaimed the lead, .348 to .343.
Howard vs. Pujols
Before Ryan Howard, there was Albert Pujols.
As home run hot as Howard has been recently, hitting 13 in 16 games, Pujols
was that hot at the start of the season, actually for the first third of the
season. Pujols hit 25 home runs for St. Louis the first two months of the
season. Howard has hit 28 in the two months since the All-Star Game break.
Pujols, though, strained a muscle in June and missed 15 games. When he was
hurt, Pujols had cooled off, hitting no homers in his previous three games
and two in the previous eight. But with Pujols, any forced time off can set
him back. He has not reached double digits in home runs in any month since
his injury and began yesterday with 44 to Howard’s 56.
Spinning the Cycle
This is what he waited for? Hayden Penn, a 21-year-old rookie, was scheduled
to make his first 2006 start for Baltimore on May 23, but he had an
appendectomy instead.
He finally made that start last Sunday against Oakland but was gone after
facing only 10 batters. They were enough for Penn to pitch for the cycle in
one inning: five singles, Nick Swisher’s double, Marco Scutaro’s triple and
Dan Johnson’s home run.
Penn, a right-hander who pitched 38 1/3 innings in eight starts for the
Orioles last season, lasted two-thirds of an inning, giving up eight runs in
a 10-1 loss.
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