Rob Thomson Blew Game 1
I am writing this post just hours after a devastating Game 1 loss by the Phillies, and I feel like I am now living in a parallel universe, where simple logic has been replaced with technobabble, where the basic laws of baseball have been overturned, where only the fans can see the simple truth.
In my world, the 6-2 loss to the Mets was the responsibility of one man above all others, manager Rob Thomson, who long ago traded in his brain for a printout of meaningless statistics. Thomson, a baseball lifer, should know better than to remove from a critical game the best arm on his team – if not the entire league – because of a pitch count.
But he did. He took out Zach Wheeler after seven artful one-hit innings and replaced him with far lesser pitchers for no good reason. Wheeler had thrown 110 pitchers – 30 of which were missed entirely by the Mets batters – but the manager was not paying close enough attention. Thomson has been programmed to look out at the bullpen as soon as that number drifts past 100.
It makes no sense, of course. In his seventh and final inning, Wheeler was as dominant as he had been all day. There was very little chance the eighth or ninth innings would have been any different. And even if they were, even if somehow he blew the game, at least the Phils would have lost with their best pitcher on the mound.
In the days before the playoff opener, dozens of emailers asked me how I thought the Phillies would do in this season of our highest expectations. I told them all that they would go as far as their robotic manager would take them. I even brought up Wheeler’s name. I said the only person who could stop the Phillies ace was Thomson himself.
Indeed, he did. What happened on Saturday should have surprised no one. The looks on the faces of the Mets players when Jeff Hoffman began his warmup throws brought new meaning to the word relief. The Mets, to a man, were relieved they would no longer have to catch up with Wheeler’s 98-mph rising fastball.
Because I am slow-minded in my senior years, I was expecting a hearty debate the next morning when I consulted all of my favorite websites. Should Thomson have left Wheeler in? Aren’t pitch-count limits arbitrary? What harm would there have been with allowing Wheeler at least to start the eighth inning?
The media asked none of these questions. Instead, the focus was on the sputtering Phillies offense, the poor work of the bullpen and even the shadows caused by the four o’clock start. There was nothing in all the major media outlets about Thomson’s decision to remove a pitcher throwing a one-hitter!
As a final desperate effort to prove I hadn’t lost my mind entirely, I checked the comments under an oblivious column by Inquirer writer David Murphy. Sure enough, there it was – the second comment: “I’ve always thought the pitch-count totals were a joke.”
The writer went on to invoke the names Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver and Bob Gibson – three Hall of Famers who routinely threw 140, 150, even 160 pitches in a game without fatal consequences. Rob Thomson is old enough to have watched those aces pitch. He must know that Gibson would have physically assaulted him if he tried to remove him from a postseason game under those circumstances.
The fact is – and I have reached the point where I sound like a trained parrot when I repeat this – there is no scientific evidence that proves pitches after 100 or 110 are more damaging to the arm that the ones before that. None. Zero. The new philosophy is the product of statistical analysis by number nerds who have been empowered to change a game that didn’t require their input.
That old-timers could exceed those limits and pitch for 15, 20 or even 25 years is stunning proof otherwise, isn’t it?
And yet, managers throughout baseball now adhere to pitch limits as if they are baseball commandments. It is idiotic and illogical. Unfortunately, the outcry about pitch counts has now reached the point where they are accepted without challenge, at least by the media.
The fans know better. I have an email inbox filled with people who know the sad truth about what happened on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.
Rob Thomson’s decision to remove Zach Wheeler at the start of the eighth inning cost the Phillies Game 1.
Thomson blew the game.
It’s that simple