To Hook or Not to Hook: Three One-Act Dramas

It’s 24 years ago, and for the Minnesota Twins the World Series is on the line.

Jack Morris has finished his ninth shutout frame, but it looks like that won’t be enough. The Atlanta Braves have also held Minnesota scoreless, and Game Seven of the Series is likely headed for extra innings. John Smoltz having departed in the eighth, it will be all down to the bullpens.

Except that Jack Morris has other ideas.

Mythologizing and revisionism have clouded the exact details, but the outlines are there to see. Twins manager Tom Kelly tells Morris, with gratitude, that he’s done for the night; relief ace Rick Aguilera will take over. Morris declares “I’m not coming out of this game.” Kelly mentions the 118 pitches Morris has thrown, on three days’ rest. Morris holds his ground: “There’s no way I’m coming out of this game.”

And Tom Kelly relents. He probably wouldn’t give way for any other pitcher on his team, but for this 15-year veteran with a certain old-school demeanor, he does. Kelly gives Morris the green light, then turns away and is heard to mutter, “It’s only a game.”

The last starting pitcher to go into extras in a World Series game was Tom Seaver in 1969. In Game Four, he worked around two baserunners to put up a zero in the top of the 10th, and his Miracle Mets won the game in the bottom.

Jack Morris didn’t make it nearly as dramatic. One pitch to Jeff Blauser got the first out, five more struck out Lonnie Smith, and he polished off Terry Pendleton with his eighth. Kelly’s risk had paid off—and he’d be doubling down by sending Morris back out for the 11th.

Only it never got that far. The Twins cracked Braves closer Alejandro Pena in the bottom of the inning, Gene Larkin’s hit over a pulled-in outfield scoring Dan Gladden with the Series-winning run.

It was a vindication of the old school, if only anecdotally — but what an anecdote. If Jack Morris wins admission to the Hall of Fame, it will be this game that puts him over the top, perhaps even more so than Bill Mazeroski’s 1960 World Series-winning homer did for him.

Morris would ever after laud Kelly’s guts in bucking conventional wisdom by choosing the well-used starter over the bullpen ace. Even 24 years ago, exposing oneself to that kind of second-guessing took plenty of guts. Maybe even as much guts as telling Jack Morris to take a seat.

***

Jump ahead 12 years, and for the Boston Red Sox the American League pennant is on the line.

Alfonso Soriano goes down on strikes for the fourth time that night, and Pedro Martinez is out of the seventh inning. Jason Giambi took him deep, and the New York Yankees put together a pair of two-out singles after that, but Pedro escaped still holding a 4-2 lead. And he knows it was an escape. As he walks off the mound, he points skyward, his accustomed gesture when coming out of a game. He thinks he’s done.

Except that manager Grady Little has other ideas.

Little has some rationale on his side. Martinez began the night without his good fastball, but in the seventh threw his fastest heaters of the game, 94 and 95 mph. Also, the Boston bullpen was a sore spot for most of the season, and Little is chary about handing the ball to his relievers until he has to. He also thinks they’ll be vulnerable to nerves in this spot, and Pedro will not.

But that same bullpen has been money in October. Its leading trio of Alan Embree, Mike Timlin, and Scott Williamson have notched 17 strikeouts against eight hits and two runs in the playoffs. Some nerves.

What’s more, Boston’s analytics people have found that Martinez’s effectiveness drops drastically once he reaches 105 pitches. Right now he is sitting on 100. In a batter or so, the clock strikes midnight and Pedro turns into, if not a pumpkin, at least a mortal pitcher.

But Grady Little may not think much of the front-office stat-heads. That Bill James’s ideas about reliever usage probably screwed up the bullpen to begin with. He goes with his own judgment, and that judgment says send Pedro back out for the eighth.

His lead restored to three runs by David Ortiz’s solo bomb in the top of the eighth, Martinez needs seven pitches to get a pop out out of Nick Johnson. He’s past the danger line, but he has his team within five outs of the pennant, winning by three runs. Just where the Chicago Cubs were, two nights ago, before the madness began.

Derek Jeter doubles. Bernie Williams singles him home. Hideki Matsui is the tying run at the plate, and Pedro is at 115 pitches. Grady Little probably knows the pitch count. He may also know that Jack Morris stayed in the game in ’91 having thrown more pitches than that. Little jogs out to the mound, talks to his pitcher, and with a pat on the shoulder leaves him in.

Eight pitches later, after doubles by Matsui and Jorge Posada, the game is tied, and Little finally lifts Pedro. The maligned Red Sox bullpen gets out of the remaining jam, but the Yankees win the game, and the pennant, in extra innings.

Grady Little may have managed with guts, or just his gut, but the front office had wanted him to manage with brains, theirs as well as his. They gave Little the axe, and gave Terry Francona the opportunity to do better next year. Little’s fate became an object lesson in modern pitcher management, one that seemed sure to stand for a long time.

***

Jump ahead another 12 years, and for the New York Mets survival in the World Series is on the line.

Mets manager Terry Collins needed a lot from Matt Harvey this evening, and got it. Eight shutout innings against Kansas City gives Collins the chance to skip over a bullpen that has been losing his confidence, and go straight to closer Jeurys Familia in the ninth to close out a 2-0 win.

Except that Matt Harvey has other ideas.

The last two months have been a melodrama for Harvey. Talk of an innings limit for this, his post-Tommy John year, leaked out from his agent Scott Boras. The Mets argued there was no such limit given by his doctors. When Harvey seemed to support the notion of easing up, the New York press began devouring him alive.

It’s a matter of proving his toughness now, because the media and the fans (and perhaps himself) demand no less. He’s been doing it, pitching effectively through October, yielding eight runs in 26.2 innings. Now, 102 pitches into November, he wants one more inning, wants his last appearance of 2015 to be a shutout win, wants to silence the doubts for good. And 40,000 Mets fans are chanting for just that.

Collins can say no. Harvey’s in just his third year of MLB pitching, not some grizzled vet who’s paid his full dues and can demand his due on close to an equal footing. Collins also has modern doctrine on his side, the doctrine of 2003 that says it’s better to pull a well-worked pitcher too early than too late.

Collins can even equivocate if he wants. He can tell Harvey, “If you want the chance, you can have it as long as you get outs. Put anybody on, and I bring in Familia.” A young pitcher pumped up on his own stuff and his own ego would take that bargain in a snap. The worst that can happen is that Familia comes in to hold a one-run lead for three outs. That’s livable.

Instead, Collins gives Harvey the ball, and gives him rope. A seven-pitch walk to Lorenzo Cain does not budge Collins from the dugout, or Harvey from the hill. Cain’s steal of second doesn’t change the equation: that’s on the defensively struggling Travis d’Arnaud. Only when Eric Hosmer cracks a RBI double down the left-field line does Collins pull the plug.

Familia gets the next three Royals out in order, but the inherited runner scores in memorable fashion to tie the game. The reprieved Royals bust out in the 12th to take the crown.

“The Dark Knight” fell. For the fans and the press who took their pound of flesh out of him in September, it means that they got, not the hero they needed, but the hero they deserved. For Terry Collins, it probably doesn’t mean the fate of Grady Little. It does mean post-game mea culpas, a painful lesson learned, and the hope that he’ll have another postseason in which to get it right.

***

Three vignettes, coming in a 12-year cycle. Is there an overall lesson to be learned? I think so, and I’ve probably let my beliefs show through my pose of historical detachment. But I will let readers make the final decisions, just as Tom Kelly and Grady Little and Terry Collins had to.

And let there be no doubt, the question will arise again. It probably won’t even need 12 years.