OK baseball guys. . .
Last night, the 0’s are trailing in the bottom of the 8th.
Brower comes in for Chen with two down, gives up a hit, which drives in a run. On the next batter, the runner is caught stealing. Inning over.
0’s take the lead in the top of the 9th.
Chris Ray comes in and retires the side. 0’s win.
Who gets the win?
Chen, Brower, Ray or “Scorer’s Discretion”?
Technically the official scorer might be able to award the win to the ‘most effective’ relief pitcher.
But from a practical matter I think Brower vultures the win.
And upon further review I see that Ray got the credit. That’s pretty unusual.
Triple Post!
Here’s a relevant quote from today’s Baltimore Sun"
It’s not often seen but the official scorer decided to do it. He’s well within his purview to do so, too. Weird.
Quite.
Sometimes you see a guy come in, blow a lead, get a guy out and still get the win if his team retakes.
Arguably that guy performed worse than Brower. I think that part of the equation must be that Brower’s out was from a “caught stealing”. That is, he didn’t contribute much to it.
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/official_info/official_rules/official_scorer_10.jsp
(4) The winning relief pitcher shall be the one who is the pitcher of record when his team assumes the lead and maintains it to the finish of the game. EXCEPTION: Do not credit a victory to a relief pitcher who is ineffective in a brief appearance, when a succeeding relief pitcher pitches effectively in helping his team maintain the lead. In such cases, credit the succeeding relief pitcher with the victory
Just a quirk of baseball scoring–someone has to get the win. Tangentially related, this reminds me of a game I went to in which Trevor Hoffman came in with two on, two out and a one run lead. He threw one pitch, which was hit for a double to the wall. However, the guy that was on first was thrown out at home. Hoffman got credit for a save.
I had to look it up at Retrosheet to confirm when this happened–it was August 28, 2001 (can’t figure out how to link to a specific boxscore at Retrosheet).
The reason Ray would have preferred the save is that closers get paid for saves and wins look bad on their record. In order for a closer to get a win (except in this somewhat unusual case) he either has to blow a save and be taken off the hook by his team or be a “mop up” closer who is brought in in losing situations and occasionally wins one. In neither case is a win a good thing on his record.