1988 Score #656 Steve Bedrosian HL / Saves Record

25 years ago today, on June 29th 1987, Steve Bedrosian recorded a save in a 6-5 Phillies win over the Pirates. It was the 19th save of his Cy Young-winning season, and it was the 12th straight appearance where he recorded a save.

Read the last part of that last sentence again…he got a save in 12 straight appearances. That doesn’t sound too unusual, right? Can you believe that at the time, he had just set the MLB record for most consecutive appearances with a save?

The card above actually celebrates that very streak. Read the back of the card, posted at the bottom here. At the time, Bedrosian’s record-breaking performance supplanted that of Sparky Lyle from 14 years prior.

In the 25 years that followed Bedrosian’s record, here are the longest streaks where a pitcher recorded a save in every appearance:

You can see Bedrock ran his streak to 13 games, but since setting his record, it’s been tied or broken 31 times. Insane.

The way that closers get used now is so exclusively in save situations, that any guy who doesn’t get a blown save for a couple of months will rack up a streak that ties Bedrosian’s 1987 record.

I don’t even really know where to begin with the stupidity of how closers are used today. The dumbest thing of all is a road team saving a closer for when they have a lead. If it’s the bottom of the 9th (or 10th or 11th, etc) and the score is tied, managers just about never use their closers. They “save” him (ironically enough) for the next inning in the hopes that their team scores in the top of the inning so they can then bring in the closer to protect the lead. That means that the manager puts in a lesser reliever to pitch that inning, and if he gives up a run, the game is over while your closer is still sitting on his ass, having never come into the game.

I do miss the days of Goose Gossage, who routinely came in during the 7th or 8th inning to pitch 2 to 3 innings to close out games. It seems to make a lot more sense. I understand, though, that limiting a closer to 1 inning (and usually fewer pitches) means he’ll throw harder, batters have less opportunity to see the pitcher, and generally he will be more effective. But I can’t help but feel that managers have swung too far in the other direction, limiting the user of closers far too much.

When Joe Torre started using Mariano Rivera in the playoffs in the 8th inning, I had hoped that this would carry over to the regular season and that Rivera would be the first of a new breed of closers who would come in for as many as 6 outs. But this hasn’t happened, presumably because on the rare occasions when a closer blows a game in such circumstances because he’s lost an MPH or two off his fastball, managers feel like they would have been better off saving him for the 9th. But the current prevailing strategy has been shown to be monumentally flawed…

It takes time I suppose. I feel pretty confident in saying that in another 10 years time, closers will not be used in such restricted circumstances. Joe Madden will probably be the first guy to figure it out.

If you’ve read this far, you get a prize. Take a look again at the picture of Bedrosian on the front of the card at the top of this post. Notice anything unusual?

There is a Montreal Expo in the background who is not a baserunner, but an infielder. This means that the photo can only be from the 1987 All-Star game, and that must be Hubie Brooks.

Tigers 5, @Rays 2: Huzzah! For the AL strikeout leader finally got his ERA below 5! It’s been a slow, careful descent for Max Scherzer, who gave up 7 runs in 2.2 IP in his first start. Austin Jackson and Miguel Cabrera each rapped out 4 hits, and all 3 Detroit relievers pitched a scoreless inning, not an everyday event for the team ranked 11th in AL bullpen ERA. James Shields allowed 14 hits, tying a Tampa club record done thrice before (most lately by Edwin Jackson, who coincidentally got knocked around last night).

• Detroit is the only team that has not been blanked in 2012. Their scoring streak of 144 games is the longest since 2001.
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@Yankees 5, Indians 4: On a day that left a big hole in the pinstriped rotation, Freddy Garcia and Robinson Cano made sure that the Wins column, at least, got filled. Garcia cleaned up the last of a mess made by 3 pitchers in the 5th, when Cleveland grabbed the lead, and retired all 7 men he faced through the 7th. Cano got the lead back with his 10th June HR, a 2-run drive in the 6th on a 1-and-2 pitch from Ubaldo Jimenez.

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Mets 17, @Cubs 1: All the Mets’ runs were batted in by just 4 men, distributed 4, 4, 4 and 5. Never before did the Mets have more than 2 players with 4+ RBI in a game, and just once had 4 players with 3+ RBI.

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Of major league history’s five longest hit streaks (that is, sequences of consecutive games with at least one hit), three have come with the hitter hitting zero homers through the entire streak.

The five longest hit streaks in the majors have been:
Joe DiMaggio (1941), 56 games, 15 homers
Willie Keeler (1896-97), 45 games, 0 home runs
Pete Rose (1978), 44 games, 0 homers
Bill Dahlen (1894), 42 games, 4 home runs
George Sisler (1922), 41 games, 0 home runs

More on homerless hit streaks after the jump. Continue reading →

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@Reds 4, Brewers 3: While Bronson Arroyo was holding Milwaukee hitless through 7, winless Marco Estrada was racking up 12 strikeouts through 6 innings. But Estrada was bitten again by his pet varmint, the gopher — a 3-run shot by Jay Bruce in Estrada’s final stanza. It was Bruce’s 3rd HR (and second 3-run job) in 11 ABs off Estrada, who has now allowed 10 HRs in 42 IP. His rate of 2.14 HR/9 IP is so high that a 1-HR stint actually lowered his average, but it’s still the highest among those with at least 40 IP.

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As if crafting the first double-complete-game in almost a calendar year wasn’t enough, Luke Hochevar and Alex Cobb enhanced the oddity by taking opposite paths to that end: no runs, 7 singles, 8 Ks for Luke; 8 runs, 13 hits, 1 K for Alex. It was the first CG since 1998-07-05 allowing that many runs, and the first with that many hits since 2010-06-30. For Hochevar, it was his 2nd shutout and 4th CG in 111 career starts, and his first-ever consecutive scoreless starts. Both hurlers used 113 pitches, and Cobb (no walks; first CG) threw one more strike than Hochevar (74-73).

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In Monday’s action, Carlos Ruiz was a major contributor to the Phillies attack in an 8-3 romp over the Pirates, going 3 for 5 with 3 runs scored and a stolen base. That performance pushed Ruiz’s batting average back above the .350 mark, just 4 points behind current NL leader David Wright.

So far this year, Ruiz is having one of the best seasons ever for catchers aged 33 or older. Ruiz was last batting below .300 on Apr 27 and, since racing past .350 with a 4 for 5 game on May 17, has been above the .350 mark on all but 5 days, and never lower than .344. Yet, it seems hardly anyone outside Philly has noticed.

After the break, I’ll take a closer look on what is so far a quite remarkable season.

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Sunday

@Rangers 4, Rockies 2: An otherwise humdrum Colorado loss (their 14th in 17 games) was jazzed up by a 9th-inning rally that self-destructed in a baserunning/fielding blooper reel with compound gaffes by both sides. It’s not often you get one play that can illustrate four separate Little League teaching points, but here we go: Marco Scutaro, (1) Always watch the runner ahead of you, and (2) Never give yourself up until the umpire says you’re out; and as for you, Mike Napoli, (3) Don’t throw the ball until the runner fully commits towards a base, and you, Michael Young, (4) Don’t chase a runner towards the next base, and especially not the trail runner. What a sorry display by both sides; it’s a shame either team had to come out ahead.

• Oh, yeah — that comic rundown registered as the game’s top play on the WPA scale.
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