Thirty-six year old Dodger pitcher Rich Hill was pulled from the game after 7 perfect innings. Manager Dave Roberts was afraid Hill might suffer a blister even though he had only thrown 89 pitches. There was no sign of blistering, but in the past, Hill had developed blisters after about that many pitches. The team desperately needed Hill for the October playoffs, so Roberts pulled Hill out of the game.
Did the manager make the right call circumventing the pitcher’s attempt to just get six more outs and joining only 23 other players who pitched perfect games in the history of baseball?
Roberts made the right call. I doubt Hill could have gotten the perfect game, and the risk just wasn’t worth it. Roberts knew it, Hunnicutt knew it, and deep in his heart Hill knew it.
A perfect game is one of those sports achievements that’s vanishingly rare not because it requires absolutely flawless execution (900 series, maximum break), or it’s highly complicated or tricky (converting 7-10 split, up and down from fairway bunker), or it requires a phenomenal athlete at the absolute top of his game (breaking 60, calendar grand slam, undisputed heavyweight champion), or the circumstances have to be juuuuust right (winning series after being down 0-3, 109 yard return, royal flush, one punch knockout), but because there are about a hundred freaky, fluky, quirky, weird, bizarre, screwball gremlin monkey wrench things than can ruin it. It’s like the Triple Crown. There were AT LEAST five horses that should have done it before American Pharaoh, and somehow, every time some ridiculous Twilight Zone crap happened and it came up short. (You’ll give yourself an aneurysm trying to explain War Emblem, much less Big Brown.) Baseball, in particular, is more prone to bizarre, inexplicable billion-to-one flukes than any other sport I’ve watched in my life.
Any pitcher good enough to make the majors could potentially pitch a perfect game. But it’s not going to happen. So yeah, if it looks like he might get hurt if he continues, pull him. Don’t be a fool. And hey, if it ends up a shared perfect game, that’s so unbelievably rare that it’d actually be a bigger story. (From the tone of the OP, I take it this didn’t happen?)
It was horrible decision. Because of little blister???
Look I get pitch counts, and saving pitchers in today’s ball game, but when you pull a pitcher in the middle of perfect game or a no-hitter, you are cheating your team, the fans and that pitcher from a monumental achievement.
If the guys elbow is the size of a softball or his shoulder is hanging like a string from the neck, OK, I can listen to that—no one is looking to hurt a guys career.
A friggin’ BLISTER??? Spray some bactine on it, douse it in Crazy Glue, wrap and bandaid around his willte boo-boo. Cant the man develop callouses?
Worry about the consequences during the playoffs. The set of circumstances affected by keeping him in by October 7 will be a minimal factor.
Im the furthest thing from a hair shirt wearing “tough it out” neanderthal, but things like this make guys like me look bad.