MLB pitching: Four ways to restore meaning to the “win”
By Bill Felber
1. Every MLB game must have a winning pitcher
Why? News flash. Sometimes more than one pitcher deserves credit for a team’s victory. By the same token, sometimes none do enough to be said to have played a part in ensuring a “win.”
The Colorado Rockies’ 6-4 victory over the Texas Rangers on April 11 is a beautiful illustration of the fallacy that there must be a winning pitcher.
The Rockies used seven pitchers in that 10-inning victory. Austin Gomber started and pitched into the fifth of a 1-1 tie when the Rangers touched him for two baserunners.
At that point, Bud Black made the first of several trips to his bullpen, summoning Justin Lawrence, who allowed both runners to scored before ending the inning.
From the sixth through the eighth, Black called on Tyler Kinley, Carlos Estevez, and Alex Colome, but each for only one inning. Each retired the side without damage, in the process allowing the Rockies to reassume a 4-3 lead.
But Black’s closer, Daniel Bard, allowed the game-tying run to score in the bottom of the ninth on a Willie Calhoun two-out home run.
That sent the game into the 10th inning, when Colorado won on an RBI single by Jose Iglesias and a home run by Connor Joe.
Ashton Goudeau, who worked the bottom of the 10th, got the save … which under the rules eliminated him from consideration for the win. Following those rules, the official scorer credited Bard with that win, even though it was Bard who had just blown the save and sent the game into extra innings in the first place.
Which of the seven Rockies pitchers should have gotten that win? The correct answer is “none of the above.” Gomber allowed three runs in five innings – hardly inspired work (although Lawrence contributed to Gomber’s undoing). He actually had the best Win Probability Added of the seven, at +0.094.
Kinley, Estevez, Colome, and Goudeau pitched scoreless innings … but in each case it was only one inning. None of their WPAs exceeded +0.050.
Had Gomber’s relief bailed him out in the fifth, he would have been a candidate for a win under revision two, which is: