Below are two pitchers’ statistics from last night. Guess which pitcher recorded the win and which pitcher recorded a no-decision.
Pitcher A: 6 IP, 12 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 4 K
Pitcher B: 8 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K
Pitcher A is Boston Red Sox pitcher John Lackey and Pitcher B is Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Dan Haren. Defying all logic, Lackey recorded his sixth win of the season last night, and Haren received the hard-luck no-decision.
Lackey was terrible last night against the Oakland A’s. His fastball was flat, his curve had no sharpness to it and as you could imagine, he had runners on base all night.
Essentially Lackey’s start last night was a microcosm of his entire season.
Haren on the other hand was spot-on against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He threw 20 first-pitch strikes to the 31 batters he faced, and when he wasn’t striking someone out, he was inducing weak ground balls.
Unfortunately for Haren, Dodgers’ rookie pitcher John Ely matched him pitch-for-pitch, and the Dodgers eventually won 1-0 in 11 innings.
My point is that as baseball and baseball statistics have evolved, we have learned that wins for a pitcher is not an accurate way to reflect how good a pitcher actually is.
Of course, people will have different opinions on what statistic is the best one to measure the true value of a pitcher, and that’s fine. But I think the one thing everyone will agree on is that wins is not the best way to do it.
Last night was another great example of that.
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