PUT IN A BAD POSITION
Non pitchers pitching in now more than ever
IT’S A made-for-GIF moment, great for injecting some buzz into a blowout while also doing the vital work of saving bullpen arms. For hitters stepping up to the plate, it’s a no-win situation that could even turn embarrassing. But if they’re the ones doing it, it might be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
Afterward, it can be awkward, because maybe the guy picked to do it enjoyed the experience, but he only got a chance because his team was getting clobbered.
What is this tangled web? It’s what happens when position players pitch, something that seems to be happening with greater frequency these days.
“I have seen some guys who wanted to be in that situation,” says the Yankees’ Carlos Beltran, who has never pitched. “But I don’t want to. For fans, it’s like, ‘Oh, man! Look at this guy pitching!’ It could be funny — for the fans. For the manager, I’m not sure it’s funny.”
It’s happened 13 times already this season, including when the Yankees’ Garrett Jones threw a scoreless two-thirds of an inning at the Stadium on May 23 in a 15-4 loss to Texas. That already would be the second-highest total since 2000, and this season may challenge last year’s 23 instances of a position player taking the mound. In games on June 16-17, six positions players pitched. Weird, considering that in 2006, not one did the whole year.
“It’s happened a lot lately, it seems like,” says Jones, who did not allow a hit but walked a batter and hit another. “You get to a point in a game where the score is run up a lot and you have a lot of games ahead of you. You want to save some arms. If you could have a guy just throw the ball over the plate and eventually get some outs, get through the inning, it helps the pitching staff.”
Jones had not pitched since high school and he was nervous, he says. He threw one of his warm-up pitches to the backstop. He also knew there was “a fine line” to the assignment. “I wanted to enjoy it — I never thought I’d be on the mound at Yankee Stadium,” he says. “But at the same time, we were getting our butts kicked. I just wanted to get off the mound as quick as possible, throw strikes and do it professionally, not do anything goofy out there.”
In 2009, Nick Swisher pitched an inning in an April blowout and some teammates were miffed he was chuckling about his pitching afterward. At the time, Jorge Posada said, “Nobody was laughing.” The two later talked it out, but the moment illustrates Jones’ “fine line.”
Still, position players pitching is a part of the game. Babe Ruth, after all, started out as a pitcher and even took the mound five times for the Yankees after he converted to hitting full time. He threw complete games for the Yanks in 1930 and 1933. Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx are also among the position players of the past to take the mound, says MLB’s official historian, John Thorn.
There are other instances where hitters moonlighting as moundsman are noteworthy: Wade Boggs threw the knuckler during a scoreless inning for the Yankees in 1997. Baltimore’s Chris Davis was 0-for-8 in a 17-inning game in 2012, but was the winning pitcher with two innings of scoreless relief. In 1993, Jose Canseco threw 33 pitches in a blowout at Fenway, but needed Tommy John surgery two months later.
That last cautionary tale illustrates why Joe Girardi told Jones, “Don’t do anything crazy out there,” before he sent Jones to the mound. Jones said he peeked at the radar gun on the scoreboard once — he had thrown an 80 mile-per-hour fastball. “Not too impressive,” he quipped. “I think I had more in the tank, but it’s not worth being sore for a week or missing time just to hit a few miles an hour more. I ended up playing the outfield the next day, so I had to be able to throw. I’m glad I wasn’t out there trying to throw as hard as I can. I know some guys have gotten hurt doing that.”
Detroit infielder Josh Wilson pitched against the Yankees on June 20 and he allowed a home run to his old Diamondbacks teammate, Chris Young. Young noted that kind of matchup can be “lose-lose” for the hitter. “If you do something good, you don’t really get credit for it,” he says. “But if you strike out, it’s really bad. You just try to have as much fun with it as possible.”
Still, a home run is a home run, Young says, so he’ll take his blast off Wilson, just like Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos will take the home runs he hit off Nick Franklin and Jake Elmore of the Rays in the same game on June 16.
“Hey, at-bats count,” Young says. “At the end of the year, you don’t look at what guys you hit homers off of. You’re still taking your at-bats seriously. You’re definitely trying to get a hit.”
Earlier this season, Philadelphia’s Jeff Francoeur, who once tried to make it back to the majors as a pitcher before returning to the outfield, threw 48 pitches in a two-inning outing. When Francoeur saw his old Met teammate Beltran at the Stadium last week, the two talked about Francoeur’s relief stint, but Beltran didn’t realize how long it was.
“Wow, that’s crazy,” Beltran says. “Forty-eight pitches? That’s unbelievable. That’s half a game for a starter. I don’t know, man.”
These kooky outings usually won’t last that long, but they probably are here to stay. With more than three months left to play this year, there have been 50 of them over the last three years, way more than any other three-year period since 2000. Of course, it’s not great pitching. While Ike Davis, a college closer and the son of former Yankee hurler Ron Davis, looked the part when he threw a scoreless inning for Oakland on April 21, the combined numbers for position-player pitchers aren’t pretty: 14 runs (seven earned) and 15 hits, including six home runs, allowed in 12 innings. Their ERA is 5.25 and they’ve walked six batters and struck out two (Francoeur K’d Nolan Reimold, and the Nats’ Clint Robinson struck out Aaron Hill).
But relief arms are so crucial these days. Just ask the Royals, who made it to the World Series last year on the strength of their pen. Using relievers when you don’t have to in a lopsided game is folly.
“If it’s a blowout game, it makes sense to try to take care of your bullpen as much as possible because the game is 99% sure out of reach,” Young says. “You can’t win every game — you get blown out every now and then. It happens.
“Bullpens are so valuable, it makes sense to save them. I’d rather one of us go out there and eat that inning up instead of using our closer.”