I was watching a video game stream yesterday of a baseball game. During the game, the AI made some questionable substitutions and in the 8th inning ran out of pitchers and brought in a substitute outfielder. Needless to say the outfielder did not do well.
Has something like this ever happened?
If this has not only happened but isn’t that rare, then what non-pitcher has the best record as an impromptu pitcher?
Just anything on the topic of a non-pitcher being forced into pitching. There seems to always be some interesting links and stories when I ask these questions.
[Moderating]
While this thread could be considered a factual question (depending on precisely how one defines “best performance”), it’s a better fit for the Game Room. Moving.
5 MLB players have played all 9 positions in one game. Each one was a great performance in a game just as part of the combo. They weren’t all that great pitching performances alone though, even when they finished the game on the mound. Getting to do this at all was simply a stunt when a team had a huge lead or was out of contention.
Position players who pitch usually only do so for an inning, maybe two. In that short a time, it’s possible to be successful largely through luck which makes it hard to rate “best performances.”
So watching those clips, what is evident is that the teams are not playing version seriously anymore as the game is no longer really in play. Batters seem to swing that things that might not normally swing at, perhaps to have the game end. Not intentionally missing, but swinging at a pitch that is quite high or outside. So determining a best performance would be really difficult.
Exactly. With the exception of long extra-inning games, where a team could simply run out of available pitchers, when a position player is tapped to pitch, it’s nearly always because the game is a blowout, and the manager wants to not use up too many pitchers in a game where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, rather than being “forced” to use a position player as a pitcher.
One could imagine all sorts of odd scenarios. For instance: Ninth inning, and the real pitcher has gotten two strikeouts, before he injures his arm and needs to be replaced. Position player comes in and throws eight balls in a row. But then, the guy on second (who’s only there because of the walks) tries to steal third, and the position-pitcher catches him at it to get the final out to win the game. On the one hand, that guy’s actual pitching was terrible, but on the other, he managed to end the game without giving up any runs. Good performance, or bad performance?
Bad performance, despite probably getting the save in that instance. He walked two, apparently didn’t even manage to throw a strike, but got away unscathed because he threw the guy out at third (which is more of a fielding play than a pitching play).
Neither good nor bad if the team had a big lead. Good enough performance if the other team could have won with one more hit, but bad performance from a manager if he had any pitchers left to put in the game in that circumstance. I’d think after the walks another position player should have been chosen to pitch if no pitchers were available. Even a pitcher set to start a game the next day will be called up to finish a game that matters.
Sounds like another of MLB’s pointless no-fun rules, along with prohibiting the (freakishly rare) ambidextrous pitcher from throwing from both sides in a single at-bat, and requiring pre-approval of signings to eliminate the possibility of a team sending a three foot seven batter to the plate.
They are playing seriously. At the end of the season when your contract is on the line it doesn’t matter if that home run or strike out was from the Cy Young winner or a position player. No one is expecting a batter to not try and hit.
There are baseball etiquette rules that come up. Not actual rules but things you don’t do when a position player is pitching. No bunting. No stealing. No swinging at 3-0 pitches.
Many position players that want to pitch seem to be proud of their knuckleball. If the knuckleball is working it might embarrass even a good hitter. Not too many knuckleballs are thrown in the majors currently. Some of those out of the strike zone swings you see are batters fooled by a knuckleball. If you don’t see them it’s hard to get the timing down.
Well, on the whole, position players pitching isn’t “fun” – it nearly always happens in games that are blowouts, and frankly, both teams are just trying to get the game over with. Most position players aren’t anything close to an MLB-quality pitcher (if they were, they’d be pitchers, after all), and with the rare exception of a stunt like “this guy played all nine positions in a game,” it’s not really interesting to the fans to watch them pitch.
The issue is that MLB teams are far more reliant on relief pitchers than they used to be (pulling starting pitchers earlier in games, and changing relievers more often), for a bunch of reasons. Due to this, managers started using position players as pitchers even more often, in an effort to keep from having to burn through their bullpens in a game that’s out of reach.
At the moment, I think that there is only one actual MLB pitcher who uses the knuckleball with any regularity: Matt Waldron of the Padres. But, unlike pitchers like Tim Wakefield or the Niekro brothers, who used the knuckleball as their primary pitch, it looks like Waldron uses it as one of his off-speed pitches.
