23 New York Mets (Butto) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Sánchez, C)

bkox 2023-09-25 00:33:49 UTC #81

not many pitchers throw a no hitter and get a save in the same season

HopeSpringsEternal 2023-09-25 00:33:52 UTC #82

Great job in finishing off the 4-game sweep!

Patchmk88 2023-09-25 00:36:24 UTC #83

Nothing like sweeping the Mets. Great pitching tonight.

bkox 2023-09-25 00:51:09 UTC #84

Never thought I would say this but right now we are winning the Curtis Mead trade. Do I expect that to continue? Juries still out. I expect Mead to have an good career. And everyone keeps saying Sanchez is pitching better than he should be based on peripherals... but right now I feel better with Sanchez than I do with any of our SPs not named Wheeler.

bkox 2023-09-25 01:03:43 UTC #85

wow I was right. Sarah Langs tweeted about it

Michael Lorenzen is the 10th pitcher to throw an individual no-hitter + record a save in the same season (since saves became official in 1969), h/t @EliasSports

he joins ️ pic.twitter.com/Hv7pDOjfYA
— Sarah Langs ( @SlangsOnSports ) September 25, 2023

MichaelJackSchmidt 2023-09-25 01:10:51 UTC #86

Kerkering's slider looked filthy.

LoneStarPhan 2023-09-25 01:13:46 UTC #87

Sweep of the Mets in four game series in September. Sure is great!

Very encouraging pitching today. Sanchez goes seven innings of good pitching. Kerkering adds 1-2-3 inning in his ML debut and Lorenzen gets a save with a 1-2-3 ninth.

Another Castellanos home run. RBIs from Realmuto and Harper. A feel good day.

BostonRoss 2023-09-25 01:57:43 UTC #88

I had to look up why Nolan Ryan got a save in 1973. On May 11, he started against the White Sox but lasted only six batters and gave up five runs. Three doubles, a single, a walk, and a fly ball that was long enough to advance a runner from 2B to 3B. He also threw a wild pitch and allowed Dick Allen to steal home with the bases loaded. I'd love to see video of that inning.

He got a save the next day that was really earned. He entered the game in the 8th with a one run lead, two on and nobody out. He got a forceout, struck out the next hitter, walked the next one to load the bases, and then whiffed Allen. He threw a 1-2-3 ninth with two more strikeouts to preserve the 6-5 win.

Three days later, he tossed the first of his two no-hitters that season.

California_Dreamin 2023-09-25 03:25:32 UTC #89

I guess today's baseball fans believe the game only started about 50 years ago. I suspect that several pitchers in the 60s-70's certainly had no no's and saves in the same season. Jim Bunning in 1964 not only saved two games but tossed a perfect game. And no one even talked about the combination. His perfect game was a national story, the two saves came in games that the Phils needed to win and turned to their ace to help them do so. And I am sure he was not alone among great pitchers of the era.

LoneStarPhan 2023-09-25 03:26:14 UTC #90

In the six consecutive seasons that Robin Roberts had twenty or more wins and pitched over 300 innings per season, he had a total of 14 saves. In those six seasons, he made 232 starts.

bkox 2023-09-25 04:05:31 UTC #91

Saves didnt become an official stat recognized by MLB until 1969 which was stated in the tweet.

zambonir 2023-09-25 12:10:30 UTC #92

The save did not even exist as a concept during those Robin Roberts' seasons. Jerome Holtzman invented it in 1959 and didn't start tracking them until 1963.

His original version of the rule also included what we now call holds (i.e you didn't have to pitch the 9th to get one, and more than one reliever could get one in the same game).

The intense specialization that makes us now think it's unlikely that a starter would "close" didn't really even take hold until the '80s, arguably even the '90s before the closer role was so commonplace (John Franco, in 1987, was the first reliever to make more than 50% of his appearances in the 9th only).

BostonRoss 2023-09-25 13:27:59 UTC #93

In my time following baseball, which dates to the mid-1960s, it has been rare for a top starting pitcher to enter a game in relief. After Nolan Ryan was traded by the Mets, who used him as both a starter and reliever, he relieved in only three games over 20 years. Jim Bunning relieved in four games in his four years as a Phillie (not counting his return as an old guy). Steve Carlton started all 499 games he pitched as a Phillie.

Of course, there are always guys who are not exclusively starting pitchers, and Lorentzen is one of those now.

zambonir 2023-09-25 13:42:26 UTC #94

Well, you don't have to be a "top" starting pitcher to pitch a no-hitter!

In some ways what's old is new again. With openers and tandem starts and swingmen and, especially, starters pitching out of the bullpen in the playoffs, you have more double-dipping (and if you are a starter in a opener game your stats count as being in relief), and less inning-based relief specialization to boot.

The no-hitter part would be the rarer element of the equation, whether it was pitched by an ace or someone forgettable (like Bud Smith, who also never earned a save).

Ryan, Bunning and Carlton would all likely make post-season relief appearances in the game as it has been for the last 10 years.

Philsmania 2023-09-25 14:20:37 UTC #95

Guys like Joe Cowley and Bud Smith--two off the top of my head who in the grand scheme of things were not even good pitchers--found magic in their arms for one game.

gmwannabe 2023-09-25 15:11:02 UTC #96

good ol' bud smith. he came pretty highly regarded ( at least from his draft spot). never worked out.
gm

schillingfan 2023-09-25 22:44:43 UTC #97

Randy Johnson pitched the last two??innings of game seven of the 2001 World Series. After pitching game six for the win.

zambonir 2023-09-25 22:46:26 UTC #98

And more recently:

The trend began in 2014, when the Giants got a five-inning save from Madison Bumgarner in Game 7 on two days’ rest. Since then, more starting pitchers (three) have gotten the final out of the World Series than season-long closers (two). Among them: Red Sox lefty Chris Sale, who struck out the side on 15 pitches to vanquish the Dodgers while Kimbrel sat in the bullpen.

andyb 2023-09-25 22:53:12 UTC #99

Not sure anyone would pull the zero day rest move any more for starters.

Clearly managers have realized that starters throw between starts and the 2 day rest inning or two is actually not much of a burden on them especially in the final game or two of a series where they would not be starting again anyway.

Ranger is the main guy who is likely to go back and forth though I could see Wheeler in a game on his throwing day if the other high leverage arms are tired or shaky. Frankly with Rob I could see him going to Kerkering too if the situation called for it.

I have actually been pleasantly surprised to see some 8th inning usage out of Kimbrel lately. Kimbrel has been off a bit the last month and introducing flexibility in his usage seems to have been done pretty seamlessly with no controversy. Rob did matchups for a long time but then made Kimbel his closer exclusively for a couple of months. I like the matchup strategy more.

zambonir 2023-09-25 23:00:47 UTC #100

For sure. Similarly, you might see Alvarado close, you might see him in the 6th inning (as was the case last year too). And while they were obviously cognizant of giving Kerkering and Lorenzen those relatively soft landings I don't think Thomson cares if either of them have closer experience. (And if he has to let Kerkering face Matt Olson in a fifth inning he'd do that too, assuming he does well.)

Thomson's clearly an "if it ain't broke don't fix it guy" so once Kimbrel settled into the role he wasn't going to mess with it, but once things became unsettled, he was willing to change things up. Same with Castellanos really. And the reverse happened with Schwarber. Turner was struggling, Stott was not as good leading off and once Schwarbs got the spot back there's been no reason to change it.