Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Is Baseball the Craziest Sport Ever?

Probably, for the following reason:
My MN Twins kicked some Texas tail today. At the end of the 3rd inning they were up 10-0 and cruising to victory. Carlos Silva, the Twins starting pitcher, ran into a little trouble in the 6th inning and got pulled for a reliever, Francisco Liriano at the beginning of the 7th inning. When Liriano entered the game the score was 11-5. Not a close game. In fact, barring a decision by the Twins coaching staff to require all fielders to replace their gloves with live Halibut for the rest of the game, the Twins were going to win this one. But when I look at the final stat line, I notice something (partially because I have Liriano on one of my fantasy baseball teams, so this affects me). Liriano, after pitching 3 innings during which a 6 run lead was increased to a 10 run lead, was credited with a Save. A stat designed to measure the success of pitchers who pitch in the most high pressure situations, with the game on the line: a single bad pitch and your team could lose instead of win. And Liriano gets one after 3 innings of mop-up duty.

This probably has to rank up there with the lowest-pressure saves ever earned in a ball game. The crazier thing is, someone (a baseball stat professional, that is) could probably take 5 minutes and give me a rundown of the 10 widest margins of victory in games where a save was earned.

What a nutty sport.

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