Three Nights in August

by Buzz Bissinger

  If it made life even more miserable than usual for a hitter, it also made life easier for a reliever, particularly one who knew the rigors of starting. Eckersley, for example, after a career of starting, chafed at being sent to the bullpen by Oakland in 1987 after his trade there. He considered it banishment, purgatory for lesser pitchers, an absolute affront to his machismo. Until he realized the joy of being able to come into a game and throw whatever you wanted as hard as you wanted, just let it rip and not fret too terribly much over pitch selection. Along with his imperviousness to pressure, it's what made Eckersley a Hall of Fame reliever, the luxury of concentrating his stuff into ten or twelve pitches.

  Beginning in the 1990s, the role of the bullpen was refined even further so that hitters weren't routinely facing a reliever or two in the late innings but virtual swarms of them, each with a speciality pitch, each one able to simply let it go because they knew they would not be hanging around for very long, maybe only one batter. Managers, if they were holding a lead into the small hours of the game, also began to break down the last third into individual outs, nine opportunities to make life as miserable as possible for every hitter coming to the plate. Hence greater use of relievers than ever for only one at-bat.

  The change in bullpen use had an obvious effect on pitch counts. By 1989, the average pitch count for a starter had fallen to ninety-four, according to the Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball. By 1991, it was down to eighty-two. In 1987, 106 pitchers had games in which they threw 140 pitches or more. The number had dwindled to thirty-six by 1995. Even nearer extinction was the complete game, plummeting from 40 percent in 1950 to 4 percent in 2001.*

  Some former managers—Jim Leyland, for example—believe that the one-hundred-pitch threshold too often becomes a crutch. He's worth listening to, perhaps, as La Russa credits him with having a better instinct for when to take a pitcher out than any other manager he has ever played against. "Just because a pitcher has thrown extra pitches doesn't mean he's done," says Leyland. "One of the areas where a manager falls into a trap is when he worries about who he will have to answer to after the game."

  He believes that pitch count is as much a function of greed as it is keeping young arms safe and strong. "You got agents involved. You got big money at stake. You got lawsuits. Trainers are scared to death." For him, the irony of reduced pitch counts is that today's pitchers are much better conditioned than the men who routinely threw 150 a game back in the 1960s and 1970s. "These guys are in better shape and they run more and half of them have home gymnasiums and strength trainers. I think managers baby them." Nor, Leyland believes, do they ever effectively learn their trade in the minor leagues. "They used to have to get out of their own jams. Now someone else there does it for them."

  Baker, who doesn't think much of the one-hundred-pitch threshold, would no doubt be heartened by Leyland's comments. When he came up as a player in the 1970s, the pitch count that most managers went by was an occasional glance at the mound to make sure that the guy's arm was still connected to his shoulder. Despite withering criticism in the media and the sports talk shows that he doesn't know how to preserve pitchers, Baker has had only two during his ten-year managing career who required arm surgery. But it still doesn't solve the immediate problem of what to do:

  Wood's at 125.

  Baker has managed against La Russa enough to know what La Russa would like him to do: pull Wood and let the Cardinals finally get a shot at the bullpen. He knows that Wood is pitching as well as he's pitched all year. He knows that Wood has thrown more than 125 pitches in a game already this season, going as high as 141 against the Cardinals in the hitter's Club Med of Wrigley. And all he needs is six outs. Granted, it is six outs against the meat of the Cardinals lineup, with Pujols followed by Jim Edmonds followed by Scott Rolen. But Wood has been blowing them away. They are an aggregate 1 for 6 against him today with three strikeouts.

  But Wood is one of those young pitcher poster boys who developed arm trouble early in his career. He exceeded 118 pitches in twelve of his twenty-six starts as a rookie and once threw 175 pitches in a single game in high school, because if you think major-league managers are tough on arms, you should take a look at high school and college coaches. It's true that Edmonds is a lefty, and late in the game, that's a matchup you would probably rather avoid because Edmonds can go downtown with the pressure on. And all the bullpen needs is six outs. It's why you have those guys sitting around back there doing nothing for most of the game, and if you don't have a bullpen that can't get six outs, there's no point even pretending you're going to get anywhere near October.

  Wood's done at 125.

  He's been hooked. Antonio Alfonseca has come out of the bullpen to face Pujols to begin the bottom of the eighth. He's big, 6'5", and unlike other pitchers that tall, there is nothing string bean about him. His chest is large, very large; it barrels beyond his uniform. His physique makes you think of a small-town sheriff who likes his barbecue big and doesn't mind confrontation. He's also an anomaly, with six fingers on his pitching hand, which may help to explain why he has dominated Pujols more than virtually any other pitcher, getting him out five of the six times he has faced him.

  He's in the classic role of specialty reliever, probably in only for this one at-bat, with a lefty due up next, so he can flaunt his out pitch with impunity because he doesn't have to worry about seeing the hitter again. His strength is hard and down to the third side of the plate, which for a hitter means "cheating" a little bit—getting the bat head out early—or keeping his hands inside the ball. Alfonseca has no need to save up strength and pace himself, think down the line. He comes in throwing hard and leaves throwing hard, and the whole time he's in, he exudes contempt and swagger. To La Russa, someone like Alfonseca is perhaps the most difficult pitcher in the game to do something against. The worst approach for a hitter to take here is the misguided heroism of going for the bomb.

  With only six outs left for the Cardinals, with first place, maybe the division championship, at stake, the pressure is enormous. Sabermetricians—those numbers-crunchers who have come to dominate thinking about strategy over the past few years—believe that they have debunked clutch situations as statistically irrelevant. La Russa has read the various studies. Based on his own forty years plus of experience, he believes those studies to be bunk of their own. To say that players don't react differently to the tension of a clutch situation is to deny the existence of human nature. He has seen thousands of players under pressure, and he knows that they have varying but distinct reactions to it: some so pumped up that you must remind them to breathe, some rendered tentative by it, a distressing number not wanting to deal with it at all. "Players can make a lot of money on their stats alone. They can play below their optimum and still make a very good living," says La Russa. "There are a lot of players that don't really want to dig deep enough to try to win."

  Some coaches think that the best way to deal with pressure is to ignore it, treat every moment of a game the same so as not to heighten the tension even more. La Russa believes that players need to openly acknowledge pressure—literally embrace it as "your friend," in his words—because the more they embrace it, the less it can intimidate them. He teaches hitters that the best way to deal with pressure is to prepare for it, come into the at-bat with a keen sense of what the pitcher is likely to throw and how you should handle it. Most important, when you're up there, focus on the process and not the result; don't project into the future. Forget about the noble but irrational concept of going for broke. Put away the hero complex and simply try to get something started. But don't hesitate, either: In clutch moments, you're unlikely to get your perfect pitch, so don't wait around for it. Be aggressive.

  Nobody lives these principles better than the great Pujols. Alfonseca serves him a sinker low and inside to start the inning. It's a good first pitch: difficult to drive, difficult to get into the gap. Pujols stays inside of it with his hands. He doesn't try to do too much with it; he simply makes contact, a
nd the ball scoots up the middle, past the shipwreck hulk of Alfonseca. It's a single, an Oscar-worthy short-form documentary on focusing on the process and not the result.

  Edmonds is due up next, but before he gets to the plate, Baker goes to the mound and makes a quick little jab signal to the bullpen, like a New Yorker hailing a cab. Alfonseca is hooked, replaced by the lefty Mark Guthrie. It's a good matchup for Baker, as Edmonds is a negligible 2 for 11 against him. Guthrie's stuff is not as good as it used to be; he has to stay away from the strike zone, or he'll get tattooed. Nowadays, he lives off chase pitches, and he's been pretty good at it. If he's not as strong as he once was, he's also smarter.

  He comes with a curve low and away on the first pitch. Edmonds swings through it, and Guthrie has the coveted first-pitch strike. He throws a forkball high. Edmonds holds off, and the count evens to 1 and 1. He follows with a sweet curve on the outside black, and Edmonds is now 1 and 2 and not looking very good in the process, Guthrie tying him into knots with effective junk. He comes with a forkball, and this pitch is even better than the curve he just threw: sweeter, nastier. Edmonds holds up, but this is strike 3. In the foxhole, even La Russa concedes that it's strike 3. In fact, the only person who doesn't think it's strike 3 is the home plate umpire. He calls it a ball. Guthrie comes with a curve that sails outside to make the count 3 and 2. He follows with another curve, close enough to the strike zone that Edmonds can't afford to hold up on it. It's in on the hands a little bit so that Edmonds's only alternative, which isn't much of one, is to fight it off and see whether he can turn it over just enough into the outfield. It drops for a single to right.

  Rolen is now due up, with runners on first and second and no outs. But before he gets to the plate, Baker goes to the mound again and hails another cab. Guthrie is hooked in favor of Kyle Farnsworth because righty-versus-righty would be a better matchup for the Cubs.

  Pacing back and forth in the foxhole, La Russa privately debates about putting on a bunt. But it feels like too defensive a play right now, given that Rolen has the power to turn the game into a 3–2 lead with one swing. Looking ahead, he begins to consider the possibility of pinch hitters after Rolen. J.D. Drew's presence as a bench player would be enormous if Baker sticks with Farnsworth. Drew kills Farnsworth; La Russa has it written down on the little cheat sheets he keeps in his back pocket:

  DREW 5-7-3

  But Drew isn't here, and La Russa can't dwell on what he doesn't have.

  The count runs to a quick 3 and 0 on Rolen. But Farnsworth fights back with two strikes, and the count is full. La Russa thinks about trying a double steal to break up the double play that might result if Rolen hits the ball on the ground. But he worries that the runner going from second to third might distract Rolen at the plate, upset his timing or maybe push him to swing at a bad pitch. Even though Rolen has swung and missed twice, they were two good swings, so he's not looking cold at the plate. La Russa also figures that even if he puts the ball on the ground, Rolen has just enough speed to possibly beat it out and hold the Cubs to a force-out. He keeps the runners where they are. Farnsworth throws his fifth straight fastball. It's high, and the bases are loaded with nobody out.

  Tino Martinez is now due up. Because he's a lefty, La Russa waits for Baker to hail a cab. Surely he'll send in a lefty pitcher to face the lefty hitter. When he does, La Russa may counter with his own move to push the matchup back his own way. He may remove Martinez for a pinch hitter, but it's not an easy emotional decision for him. He knows that Martinez has four World Series rings from his days as a Yankee. He knows the way in which, all his career, he has accepted the responsibilities of being a key hitter in key situations. That's the Martinez the Cardinals signed for $21 million after the 2001 season. But La Russa also knows the struggling Martinez, and in clutch situations with runners in scoring position, Martinez has been struggling terribly. So the question for La Russa, the one he will have to make in a matter of moments, is to somehow try to glean which Martinez is going to come to the plate.

  II

  MARTINEZ'S RESPONSE to pressure has been like a 45-rpm record, a timeless hit on one side and the flip side maybe best forgotten. When La Russa needs an example of how to deal with tension, he points to the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2001 World Series between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks at the Stadium, fifty days after September 11. Martinez was up with two outs against Byung-Hyun Kim and the Yankees down by 3–1 with a runner on first. He remembers what anyone who has ever watched baseball will remember: that game-tying two-run homer into right field that didn't simply shake Yankee Stadium to new levels of hysteria but unleashed torrents of pride through a suffering city. La Russa was curious about what had gone through Martinez's mind in the ultimate clutch situation: whether he was thinking home run or at the very least trying to pull the ball. Tino said no; he knew that Kim was a fastball pitcher, so that's what he was looking for, a fastball that he could put his best swing on. To La Russa, it was the perfect answer: putting his best swing on the pitch—not his home-run swing, not his pull swing—just his best one. Focusing on the process and not the result.

  The flip side could be seen once Martinez came to St. Louis after the 2001 season. He signed a fat three-year deal, which placed the noose of expectations on a player who many around the league thought was losing bat speed, nowhere close to hitting the forty-four home runs he'd hit for the Yankees in 1997. Martinez also had to fill the shoes of Mark McGwire at first base, an expectation no man could fulfill given McGwire's season-breaking seventy home runs in 1998. Martinez immediately became a fall guy for St. Louis fans who, by this season, had begun doing something they almost never did: booing a Cardinal when he came to the plate. Because Cards' fans are the most knowledgeable and loyal in all of baseball, they booed almost reluctantly, polite as booing goes, what would have passed for a standing ovation in Philly.

  But in this moment in the bottom of the eighth with the bases loaded and no outs, Martinez is hitting .225 against left-handed pitching. Coupled with his performance the prior season, .262 with twenty-one home runs and seventy-five RBIs, it is clear that Martinez's pride is increasingly at odds with his output. He felt burned when La Russa pinch-hit for him against the lefty Dan Plesac in the Phillies series just prior to this one. He felt humiliated, and in the clubhouse, he had become privately snappish, telling others his problems at the plate were largely the fault of La Russa's incessant tinkering. He should feel burned, as any man animated by competitive spirit should. La Russa likes such qualities in a ballplayer, but he also knows that players are often unrealistic about their situations. Earlier this season, Martinez complained about hitting sixth or seventh in the Cardinals lineup; he said that when he played for the Yankees, Joe Torre never juggled him around but always batted him fourth. The comment rankled La Russa, so he pursued the substance of it and found that Torre did indeed have Martinez hit sixth or seventh in the Yankee lineup. It indicated to La Russa there were times that Martinez struggled as a Yankee and was dropped in the lineup, just as he is struggling now. Which is only further incentive for La Russa to lift him if Baker calls in for the lefty.

  But Baker stays put. He doesn't head to the mound to hail a cab. Martinez won't be burned this time, unless it's by Farnsworth. Martinez hasn't faced him much: two at-bats, no hits. Given his .203 average with runners in scoring position this season, this is not an optimum situation for him with the bases juiced. It only gets worse when Farnsworth gets a favorable call from the umpire for a first-pitch strike. Farnsworth follows with another fastball. It's clearly a ball if Martinez holds up on it, and all year long, even in troubled times, he has always maintained savvy plate discipline, more than willing to squeeze a walk here, not succumb to visions of immortality. But he doesn't.

  La Russa would be content with a sacrifice fly to right, and so would Martinez. It would send Pujols home and put the next batter, Edgar Renteria, in the situation he thrives in—two runners on and only one out, a seventh-hole hitter with
seventy-eight RBIs. But it's a grounder to the right side. It's going somewhere, but it's unclear where, in that uncertain zone between sharp and not sharp enough, just out for a little summer-night stroll. Cardinals fans don't know whether to cheer or groan. Cubs fans don't know whether to cheer or groan.

  It could be a single. Or it could be a double play. Rolen, who has taken a healthy, smart lead off first, is off on contact to try to avoid the latter. As he's going, the ball skitters by and almost hits him. He dodges it somehow without breaking his momentum. The ball has opted for the path between first and second, with just enough force that the Cubs infielders on the right side can't quite get to it.

  Pujols comes home: 2–1. Edmonds comes home: 2–2.

  Martinez stands exultant at first, just the little trace of a smile, basking in the kind of adoration he has so rarely enjoyed in St. Louis. He has tied the game on a gritty piece of hitting, getting to a pitch up and out of the zone and simply staying with it. It is beauty under pressure. But even more beautiful to La Russa is Rolen's base running. It's a lost art because there's no money in it; no incentive clause rewards you for doing it well, so those who actually do it want something from the game other than money. They play it right because it was meant to be played right.