Pitchers have upper hand, gladly use it

On the south side of Chicago on Sunday afternoon, Chris Sale of the White Sox matched a career high by striking out 15 Chicago Cubs. Sale did this by pitching seven innings during which he allowed only one hit.

Sale struck out Kris Bryant of Las Vegas three times.

And this wasn't against the the old Cubs, the Bad News Cubs. This was against the reborn Cubs who were the hottest team in baseball, having won nine games in a row before Sunday and 15 of 16.

In the City by the Bay, Madison Bumgarner of the Giants struck out 14 Washington Nationals. Bumgarner pitched all nine innings — a complete game, if you can remember those. He allowed just three hits (and also hit a home run and an RBI double).

Bumgarner struck out Bryce Harper of Las Vegas three times.

At the Polo Grounds in New York City, Bugs Bunny struck out three Gashouse Gorillas on just one pitch. Talk about good stuff.

Bugs Bunny did not really strike out three Gashouse Gorillas on one pitch. That was in the cartoons in 1946.

But — Boston's 22-10 victory over the Mariners on Saturday, and the Orioles' 18-run, 26-hit outburst against the Athletics on Sunday notwithstanding — there is something cartoonish about the way pitchers are dominating baseball this season.

It's even trickling down to the minor-league level.

On Saturday night a Pacific Coast League game was witnessed in which one side managed only four hits. The one side was the 51s, who lost to the Iowa Cubs and somehow seem to be letting first place slip away.

It was over in a snappy 2 hours, 20 minutes. I bumped into a couple of frat boys in the parking lot who said the game was so short they didn't catch a buzz.

All these strikeouts and scoreless innings streaks in Los Angeles are bringing back memories of the Year of the Pitcher in 1968. That was the season Bob Gibson went 22-9 with a 1.12 earned-run average — the season umpires were instructed to call strikes from the top of the armpit to the bottom of the knee because the NBC Game of the Week was getting too high-scoring.

This season, from what I can tell, umpires have been instructed to call pitches strikes that are six inches outside. This seems especially true when Kris Bryant bats.

But there's more to it than Cowboy Joe West's liberal strike zone.

Before Sunday's game between Iowa and Las Vegas I spoke to Jerry Reuss, who has been helping 51s broadcaster Russ Langer with color commentary, about pitchers having a noticeable upper hand.

During a career that lasted 22 seasons, Reuss won 220 games in the big leagues. So his opinion should probably count for something.

Reuss said that "Moneyball" movie is mostly to blame for these 2-1, 15-strikeout games. Or to credit, if you happen to sport a ZZ Top-like beard and are warming up in the bullpen.

It's the metrics of baseball, Reuss said, the technology that enables scouts and scouting services to break down every minute detail of a game and put it into a spreadsheet or onto videotape, to be viewed by pitchers before they go out for warm-up tosses.

Then the infielders and outfielders are brought in and a shift is devised. And the hitters, especially the left-handed ones, stubbornly try to hit the ball through the shift instead of learning to go the other way or dropping down a bunt.

Chicks digging the long ball also may have something to do with it, though Reuss did not comment on that trend.

"I don't know when it began, but I guess it's been a gradual shift that the teams prepare video for the pitchers to see," the big left-hander said as he finished his pregame press meal.

"It's one thing to be told, it's another thing to keep track of those things yourself. But it's something entirely different when you can see a video from the center-field camera, from high at home, or from the dugout level to see exactly the way you are pitching, and how hitters are reacting to the pitches that are thrown.

"That's part of it."

Plus, everybody throws 90 mph-plus today, not just Koufax and Drysdale, and the umps give pitchers the outside strike, probably because the games are too long and it's hard to get something to eat in Kansas City late at night.

Walks are way down this season to just 2.8 per game, the fewest since 1920.

Then there are those shifts, which can add to a pitcher's effectiveness, especially if the pitcher is named Kershaw or Greinke or Bumgarner.

"Then you get into the defense which is something else, because there are advance statistics now," Reuss said. "I don't understand all of them; but even if you do understand them, if you don't have control or command of your pitches, it doesn't really matter."

In other words, baseball metrics probably wouldn't have helped John Rocker, or Dock Ellis, when he was pitching high on LSD. It's hard to concentrate on ground ball percentages on 2-1 counts and whatnot when Nate Colbert is standing in the on-deck circle looking like a Peter Max painting.

But when I asked Reuss if he wished he were pitching today, he answered with an enthusiastic "yes."

"You know, I do, because if I were pitching now, I'd be 66 years old and earning an average salary of about $500,000," he said.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him: @ronkantowski