1-Man’s Opinion-Tuesday “Baseball’s Old Axiom-no longer true”
What’s the old phrase in baseball, “Good pitching beats Good hitting”?
Are you sure about that, based on what we have seen the first two weeks of baseball’s post season.
The New York Mets surely subscribe to that, with their bevy of hot young pitching arms. Those hired guns have shutdown the Chicago Cubs young bats, as they head back to Wrigley Field for Game 3-of the NLCS in Chicago. The Mets lead that series 2-games to none, thanks to Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndegaard.
But good pitching has not beat good hitting in the Blue Jays-Royals ALCS. The Jays ace David Price has an awful post season record in the playoffs, stretching from Toronto back to Detroit to Tampa Bay. The Royals rotation in this postseason has included the erratic Johnny Cueto, the enigma that is Edinson Volquez, and even ex-Padres-journeyman Chris Young got a postseason start.
The Cardinals had great pitching all year long, running to the finish line with a (100-62) regular season record, but it surely didn’t mean much. The Cubs clubbers knocked John Lackey, Michael Wacha and others around. So long St. Louis.
How about the Dodgers, the awesome numbers put up by Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Their super human in season accomplishments meant nothing, as they were battered out of the postseason.
Houston’s bats got them to postseason, but even ace Dallas Keuchel couldn’t carry them much beyond that first round, and then their bats went silent.
The Yankees had no pitching, then they stopped hitting. Pittsburgh’s fabulous season led them to being one-and-done.
Even Texas, with the front end of the rotation featuring Cole Hamels, is sitting at home, unable to advance.
Maybe baseball is changing. Maybe you need more bats than arms. Maybe you need the ability to rally back in any inning against anybody, anytime. Maybe the truth is pitchers from start-to-start, cannot be trusted to get you to the finish line now in baseball, because everyone’s got hitters who can take you yard.
Jose Bautista and the Blue Jay bombers are something to see. Same with Eric Hosmer and his guys in Kansas City. Still waiting for Rizzo-Bryant and all those young Cubs to get it cranked up too.
Good pitching beats good hitting. Once upon a time it did. But in 2015, I need runs, lots of them, because it’s likely the other guy is going to score a bunch too.
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