160 pitches?!?!?! - Angels in the Outfield (1994) Discussion

[–] tecmosuperbowler 21 years ago

yeah, it was ridiculous. so was Neal McDonough's, but his was supposed to be that way. Neal's character was hilarious, by the way; one of the few bright spots in this insipid movie.

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[–] disdained_heart 20 years ago

I used to like this movie, along with "Rookie of the Year" and "Little Big League" just for the fun of it. I was watching this movie this afternoon and although I love baseball I must admit I still don't know much about it. But, what surprised me even more than the 160 pitches was the fact that they kept Danza through the 9 innings despite of him not able to strike out. I know it's a movie and all but come on! I'd say he shouldn't have even lasted to the end 5th inning, all his pitches were hits and I know the outfielders needed action but how much can you afford to really gamble in a pennant race?

"the spell ends at midnight...damn, that only leaves me with 23 hours!"

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[–] gobears19872 20 years ago

Actually, it isn't bad to get your outs via flyouts, popups, or groundouts. I being a White Sox fan am very familiar to this sort of pitching.

The Sox have 2 pitchers who are like this and don't get Ks. They are Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland. Both of them have an AL leading (8-1) record and low ERAs (2.57 for Garland and 3.05 for Buehrle) The reason they have such great records and low ERAs is that they get outs with few pitches and go deep into games. Buehrle and Garland are no where close to the leaderboard in Ks. Garland has only 31 Ks in 9 starts and Buehrle isn't much better. They rely on control and their ability to choke up a batter or force him to fly out off the end of their bats. These pitchers are more durable than a strikeout pitcher as they require less pitches to get outs. A strikeout pitcher gets into battles where they have to attack the plate and have 10 pitches in a single at bat fouled off. A pitcher who relies on outs via fielding plays can get outs quickly on less pitches. This is why Garland and Buehrle each have multiple CGs and Garland has 2 Shutouts. These pitchers are in the minority though. Another notable pitcher who relies on control is Greg Maddux (who has over 300 wins.)

To see why strikeout pitching isn't better, we will look at the Cubs (**** the Cubs, GO SOX!) rotation. With the exception of Maddux, the Cubs have strikeout pitchers. Lets look at Prior and Wood. Both require many pitches to get out of innings due to the foul ball battles that occur when you directly attack the plate with every pitch as a strikeout pitcher must. The result is they either throw way to many pitches (130-140 range) if you want to get 7-8 innings or a CG. BTW, a pitcher should NEVER surpass a 110 pitch count if you want to avoid any long term damage. Since the Flub pen stinks, Dusty must force his pitchers to pass the red line. The result is that both WOod and Prior spend more time on the DL than they do on the rubber. When Dusty tries to err on caution and pull Wood after 6 IP and 110 pitches, the pen often gives up the lead and Wood gets a no decision. This has contributed to Wood getting no more than 14 wins in any of his 7 years in MLB while Mark Buehrle's worst year in his career was a 14 win year.

Now that we see the comparison, who would you rather have on your team. If we are talking fantasy baseball where Ks, K/9IP or K/BB mean something, then you want WOod and Prior, but if you are in the Real World and want your favorite MLB team to WIN, then you want Buehrle and Garland. (I have both Buehrle and Garland on my fantasy team though because I love the SOX and was able to pick them up in late rounds)

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[–] D-Wright5 20 years ago

Early in the 20th century, it was not uncommon for pitchers to exceed 150 pitches in a game. Sometimes pitchers threw 200 pitches.

Also, keep in mind, Mel Clark came off the DL in August. He hadn't played all season. So, it is plausible that despite he was at the end of his career, he had more to give per game due to his extended rest.

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[–] cerebus215 20 years ago

Nah, coming off the DL, at the end of your carrer your even LESS likely to get through 160 pitches. But so what. If every baseball movie were as mundane as the average baseball game, why would anyone want to see it? Throwing 160 pitches is a special, remarkable game, thats why its in a movie. Special things happen in movies.

And I'll back up the person who preceeded me to pointed out that strike-outs have nothing to do with the effectiveness of a pitcher. Crash Davis said "Strike outs are communist". Strike outs get the fielders back on their heels, cause fielders to be unprepared for a play, and as mentioned before, run up pitch counts (although its odd to have 160 pitches in a game without any strike-outs).

Nolan Ryan (one of the most over rated pitcher of all time, thanks to people who don't understand baseball) had nearly 6,000 strike-outs, and was very close to being the first pitcher in a hundred years to lose 300 games. He finished at a mediocre .526 winning percentage, and a monumental 292 losses for third all time. Throw out the strike-outs, easily the most selfish, non-team oriented stat a pitcher can have, and the 7 no hitters, which is truly remarkable, no argument, and what do you have left? Just two twenty win seasons, both of which were also 16 loss seasons. Not good. Career ERA 3.19. Not bad, but not hall of fame. Just one world series victory in 1969 with the mets, so early in his career that he had nearly zero impact on the season. Never finished higher then 14th in the MVP voting, and never even won a Cy Young award. A hall of famer should have won at least one Cy.

To be fair, he had a year with a miniscule 1.69 ERA. Thats amazing. Led the lead in fewest hits per nine innings more times then I can easily count. Thats amazing. If I remember right, he was the first MLB player to earn a million dollars in a single season. Not to mention that in addition to his 7 no-hitters, he has somewhere in the range of thirteen ADDITIONAL one-hitters. He was one webgem, one great play away (thirteen times) from TWENTY no-hitters. Thats so impressive its disgusting.

So don't think I'm a Ryan hater, or that I don't know all the facts. I just think the only claim to fame is the longevity of his 27 years of MLB service. Cut his career down to 20 years, and he barely has 4000 strike-outs. Still impressive, but not great. Take his career down to a mere 18 years, the length of a normal great pitching career, and he drops down to only 3,800 strike-outs. Since he'd only have 231 wins if you cut those same years off the end of his carrer (keep in mind, I'm not even averaging, and projecting these stats, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, letting him keep the stats from the years of his prime, and just trimming the fat off the geritol years of his career. Taking the FIRST, BEST 18 years of his career, and still this is what we find).

Less then 4,000 strikeouts (but more then 3,000), and just 231 wins would probably get you into the hall... but barely.

Strike-outs are overrated.

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[–] jmcadams3 19 years ago

"...4000 strike-outs. Still impressive, but not great."

This line just shows how very little you know about baseball. 3800 strikeouts would still be 4th all-time. And your rationalization for Nolan Ryan being overrated is that if you delete 1/3 of his career, he only barely makes the hall? That's the worst piece of logic I have ever heard. If you take off half of Hank Aaron's career, he would have hit 500 home runs. But YOU CAN'T. We have this rule that you give a guy credit for what he actually did, not what he "should" have done.

Also, these people who overrate him who don't know about baseball? Would that include the 491 out of 497 possible votes he received from the hall of fame voters on the first ballot? The members of the Baseball Writers Association of America with at least 10 years of experience? Are those the clueless people you are talking about?

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[–] jewellrunner 19 years ago

Ummm....a 3.19 is incredible. I believe you describe it as "Not bad, but not Hall of Fame." I don't have any stats in front of me, so I have nothing to compare it to, but 3.19 ERA over 27 years is unbelievably good. If a pitcher has an ERA under 4 for an entire season it's considered a good year, let alone 27 years.

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[–] gobears19872 19 years ago

Wilber Wood frequently threw over 200 pitches a game in the 1960s and 70s. I believe Nolan Ryan also threw over 200 on some occasions.

And IIRC, someone did once get 6 hits off of Nolan. His name was Robin Ventura, but the hits he got didn't come with a bat. They came with Nolan giving him 6 good punches to the face. (one of the most famous brawls ever.)

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[–] th3_juan 18 years ago

As far as the pitch counts go, the most pitches I ever threw in a game was 182. And the best game I ever pitched I had 0 walks, 1 hit and 0 strike outs. You dont need strike outs to be effective.

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[–] NobodymournstheWicked 19 years ago

Well remember, that he pitched the whole game, and usually you don't see a starting picther playing the whole game, usually they are done in about the 6 or 7 inning, and there are times they might have to leave earlier then that. It has been a while since I last watched this movie, but I got it on dvd, I will have to keep up with the movie.

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[–] iisickpupii 19 years ago

"i remember pedro martinez threw 150 in a game in like 2001/02 or something, but thats pedro. this is really unreal. "

OF COURSE ITS UNREAL! IT'S A MOVIE!

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[–] gobears19872 19 years ago

Livan Hernandez threw 155 in a game this year.

But, back to my K's not important point. Look at the ALCS. The SOx had few Ks, but they also issued few walks and because the ball was put in play, they got outs quickly. The result, the Sox pitchers had FOUR straight complete games. The only pitcher to even come close to 120 pitches was Freddy Garcia. That is why getting ground-outs and flyouts is important. You can afford to put the ball into play with the team of gold glove calibre players Kenny Williams put together. (Crede, Uribe, "crash" Rowand, and Dye.)

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[–] 19 years ago

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[–] jmcadams3 19 years ago

Strikeout pitchers only have crazy high pitch counts if they are pure power fastball pitchers who get 10 pitches fouled off every at-bat. Sure they're gonna be higher, but it's possible to be a strikeout pitcher and still be a bit efficient. Guys like Jake Peavy, Johan Santana, John Smoltz, have realistic pitch counts and are great strikeout guys. You are talking about guys like Kerry Wood, Roy Oswalt.

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[–] gobears19872 18 years ago

I don't know. Peavy struck out the side in the 1st inning of the ASG, but he still threw aroudn 25 pitches in the inning. That is over 8 pitches per batter.

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[–] jpetty1 18 years ago

It was implied that George Knox was the one rapidly wearing down Mel's Arm, so it's just another way of showing George's handling of pitchers. Also did anyone notice that Whit Bass was 2-10 by the second or third month and it seemed like the guy pitched every two to three games?

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[–] yeshli2nuts 18 years ago

A kid was seeing angels yet a pitcher throwing 160 pitches is unreasonable?

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[–] gobears19872 18 years ago

It seems to me like Knox is like Dusty Baker then. He has destroyed Mark Prior and Kerry "Balsa" Wood.

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[–] misterfurious22 18 years ago

Not only is the 160-pitch game by a washed-out old guy ridiculous, it was a 3-2 ballgame. If it was a high-scoring game, he could have thrown 120 or so, but since it was a 3-2 game, a complete game would take maybe 100 to 110 pitches. 160? He would have to throw like eight or nine pitches to every batter he faced. That's flat-out ridiculous. And don't respond with "but angels playing baseball isn't", because it's just annoying.

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Formerly rockybalboa518

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