Clutch 23-2016: And Down the Stretch They Come

For those reading this at time that’s not today, it’s the final week of the baseball regular season and there are a couple of heated pennant races still going. As of this writing there are three teams battling for two “Wild card” spots in the National league. It will certainly be an exciting 72 hours as two will rise to the top and one for sink to the bottom. The result of who moves on and who doesn’t will likely literally come down to the final out Sunday night. Until then the fans of the respective teams, which is the Mets, Giants and Cardinals in this case, will sit, pray, sweat and hope that things work out for them.

Assuming everything is still at stake on Sunday everyone will look at the result of that game as the make or break for the season. What gets overlooked is that the same can be said for any of the other 161 regular season games. A heartbreaking loss back in April carries as much weight as serious October baseball. A players mental mistake, physical error or not delivering in the Clutch in what seemed to be an average day now comes back to haunt the team. Likewise is a possible blunder of a decision made by the third-base coach, pitching coach or manager. This is why the “Every” rule should be in effect. Every player and coach should play every game like it’s the seventh game of the World Series.

Let’s take a look in to the Cardinals, who are currently at the bottom of the three-way dash. Earlier in the month there was an ESPN sub-headline about how the manager made a bad decision that cost them the game. Nobody thought much of it back then as it was one game among a sea of others. Now, not so sure about that. Fast-forward to yesterday, which was the fourth to last game of the season and a much win for the team. The umpire made a wrong decision in the bottom of the ninth which allowed the Cardinals winning run to cross the plate. Since that “ended” the game, the players and umpires left the field before the opposing manager was able to argue and request a replay. The Cards got away with one there, and it kept their season alive for at least one more day. It’s the ying and the yang, and the two decisions seemed to even themselves out.

Then there was the race of 1985, which coincidentally also involved the Mets and the Cardinals. The Mets had 95 wins with six to play. The Cardinals had 98 wins with six to play as well. The math said that the Mets were still in control of their own destiny to at least guarantee a tie. Sweep the three games versus the Cards and then both teams would be in dead heat heading until the final weekend. Obviously this means that those three games needed be all be played like a game seven.

The first game was a gem for the ages. Both starters, Ron Darling for the Mets and John Tudor for the Cards, threw nine innings of shut-out ball. Tudor actually pitched 10 innings of no-run ball! The Mets won it in the 11^th courtesy of a key hit by Daryl Strawberry and two innings of shut-out relief by the immortal Jesse Orosco. Orosco was just about literally immortal as the Mr. Clutch statisticians believe he pitched deep into his sixties. Ok, that’s a little fun and exaggerated. Jesse did pitch for 24 seasons and was 45 years old when he hung up his spikes.

Game two also went to the Mets in what was also an iconic game. Here is was more of an individual season full stat that stands out in that game. It was Dwight Gooden’s last regular season start in what would go down as one of the best seasons pitched by any pitcher in any year on any planet. Doc ended the season 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA, 268 Ks, 8 shutouts and on and on. Ironically, that game was one of Doc’s “Worst” performances of the year, which was giving up two runs over a complete game nine innings with 10 Ks. It’s worst from the perspective that it “Raised” his ERA!  The Met’s won that game 5-2 and Doc even contributed with an RBI that game. He was the closest thing to Superman in a pinstripes. Oh, and by the way the “Losing” pitcher in that game was Joaquin Andujar, who had 21 wins himself. These two would clash now and again during the season. As a sidebar – RIP Andujar who Mr. Clutch just found out quietly passed away just about exactly a year ago.

Here’s where the rub comes into play. First, let it be known that Mr. Clutch never was fan of Mets manager Davey Johnson. Clutch always thought of him as a “Bad” manager who managed a great team. He made many during the season decisions that likely cost the Mets 10 games or so. With someone else skippering the team there probably would be no discussion here as the Mets would have been five or so games ahead coming around the clubhouse turn. Instead, the team had to sweat in fall.

For those Cardinal historians out there, you already know that the 1985 team was built around speed and the ability to “Manufacture” runs by way of using that speed. The starting lineup for the team had a shade under 300 stolen bases for the season. That’s almost two a game for those keeping track. The catcher had six and then even had a bench player with 12. This was also the rookie season of Vince “Van Go” Coleman who only swiped 110 that year. Another interesting stat is that the entire Mets roster that year stole 116, which is six more than Coleman. The point of over explaining this is that the Cardinals planned on running all over the place in this game and manager Davey Johnson though he had the answer.

Sid Fernandez was schedule to pitch this pivotal and very important game. That’s pretty good news in that El Sid was having an excellent statistical season. His win-loss record didn’t reflect it too much at 9-9, but he had a 2.80 ERA, 1.10 WHIP (Hits and walks divided into innings pitched) and most importantly he averaged almost 10 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. To kid Clutch it seemed obvious that Sid should get his normal start that day. He likely won’t allow many runners on base, strikes out a ton to keep the ball off the field and would probably give up under three runs. This no-brainer became a brain-teaser to the not-so-great Davey Johnson. 

Davey decided to start Rick Aguilera instead and his reasoning was that Aguilera had a quicker delivery to the plate and would “Do better” at keeping the Cardinals jackrabbits in check at first or second base. Rick had a way higher ERA, WHIP and struck out about half the amount of batters than Sidney. This means more Cardinals would be getting hits and putting the ball in play. It also meant more potential runs would score.  Another note on this is that Fernandez was left handed and southpaws traditionally do a better job than righties on keeping runners on since they are facing the base while in positon. Kid Clutch was disgusted about this decision and was convinced that the Mets season was over before the game started.

Sure enough Aguilera gave up four runs in six innings, which included a wild pitch and a balk. Vince Coleman had three hits that day and knocked in two of the four runs. Aguilera gave up 12 hits and walks over the six innings, which is a WHIP of 2.00. It was no surprise as he did exactly what the stats said he was doing to do. To give a little bit of useless credit to Johnson that was the only game in the series that the Cardinals did not steal any bases. Unfortunately they were busy knocking in runs.  

Why did that game not “Really” matter? Because that nit-wit Johnson cordially allowed Doug Sisk to pitch that year. Sisk must have had 20 blown holds during the season. He was a reliever with a five plus ERA (5.30 to be exact). Johnson kept marching him out there April through September because he was trying to have him build up confidence and get passed the acres of bad outings. This teachable moment came at the expense of the Mets losing around 10 games that they should have won. And BOOM goes the dynamite.