54 Games — Baseball Bench Coach

Tommy Lasorda, former Dodgers manager, was once quoted: “No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are, you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.” In a 162-game season, it comes down to the critical 54 games that make or break your team’s season. To break it down even more, a baseball season is a multitude of 3-game series with different opponents. Each team might easily take a win in two games of the series, but how do you win the critical third game? Let’s take a look at what might make the difference in winning or losing.

First, you need to win the tight games where you have a lead late in the game. Last Sunday, two of the all-time great relievers were inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Mariano Rivera and Lee Smith. Rivera is the greatest finisher in baseball’s history. He was the Yankees’ closer for 17 seasons and amassed some incredible statistics – MLB career leader in saves (652) and games finished (952). His Yankees won the World Series five times during his tenure and a lot of it was due to Rivera’s playoff dominance, lowest ERA (0.70) and most saves (42) in playoff history. He was deemed the “Sandman” because the game was virtually over once he entered it. Rivera’s personal accolades are many – 1999 World Series MVP, 2003 AL Championship MVP, 13-time All-Star, and finished in the top three for the AL Cy Young Award in four different seasons. Most notably, Rivera was the first-ever unanimous selection to the Hall of Fame.

Lee Smith was a remarkable closer in his own right. In his 18-year MLB career he pitched in 1,022 MLB games and finished 802 of them, mostly with the Cubs and Cardinals. Smith’s physical presence alone terrified hitters. His dominance on the mound included 47 saves as a Cardinal in 1991 (setting the NL record at the time), the same year he finished second in the NL Cy Young voting. He still holds the Cubs career record with 180 saves. Smith related an interesting story at his induction ceremony. In 1979, at the beginning of Smith’s career, he was so mythed about the Cubs making him a relief pitcher that he decided to quit and head back home to Louisiana. Billy Williams, Cubs HOF’er, sat him down and told him that the game’s use of relief pitching was changing and that Smith might make a good career out of it! Words of wisdom by the Sweet Swinger.

One last thought about the Rivera and Smith inductions; there are only six other relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame! The other six include Hoyt Wilhelm (1985), Rollie Fingers (1992), Dennis Eckersley (2004), Bruce Sutter (2006), Goose Gossage (2008) and Trevor Hoffman (2018). This lack of recognition until recently tracks the relief pitcher’s role in the game. The concept of a “save” (getting the last outs of a game when your team is leading by three or fewer runs) did not become an official MLB statistic until 1969. In the 1980s Whitey Herzog masterfully handled the St. Louis Cardinals bullpens that featured Bruce Sutter in the late innings. Many though credit Tony LaRussa as the inventor of the closer role with his heavy reliance on Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning for the Oakland Athletics in the early 1990s.

The closer role is not always, and really shouldn’t be, just a ninth inning stopper. Too often skippers turn to less reliable relievers in outcome determining moments in the seventh or eighth innings. There are a few examples of managers who know that they have an overpowering pitcher with the ability to take the game away from the other team at a crucial point. Joe Maddon’s use of Aroldis Chapman as his ultimate weapon (not just 9th inning closer) during the second half of 2016 and in the playoffs is one example. Today, Milwaukee Brewers’ manager Craig Counsell has a stud in hard-throwing Josh Hader and is always looking for the critical spot in the late innings for him to stymie a rally.

Getting the winning edge in those critical 54 games is more than just relief pitching. Many games come down to which team plays the better defense. While team fielding percentage is one measure (the percentage of time a defensive player handles a batted or thrown ball without making an error), it’s not always a good one if your defensive players don’t have much range. The better measure is “defensive efficiency”, or the rate of times batters reach base on balls put in play. The five teams with the best defensive efficiency marks in the last 50 years all had outstanding regular season records: Dodgers (’75); Athletics (’90); Reds (’99); Mariners (’01); and Cubs (’16) (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus).

Many baseball analysts point to run differential (the difference between a team’s total runs scored and allowed) as being the telling factor in the course of a season. The top ten run differentials in MLB history belong to some of baseball’s greatest teams – the 1927 Yankees; 1954 Indians; 1969 Orioles; 1975 Reds; and the 1998 Yankees. Sometimes though run differential can be an anomaly because of success or failure in winning the close games. This year’s NL standings suggest just that. The Braves currently stand in first place in the NL East (and are currently the #2 seed in the NL playoffs) with a run differential of + 58 and record of 62-44, while the Diamondbacks are in third place in the NL West with a run differential of + 66 and a record of 53-53.

Okay, your head is spinning now with all of the numbers, something I promised not to do. But baseball has changed with the top executives all deeply rooted in statistical analysis and sabermetrics. What makes a difference in those critical 54 games? Is it team ERA? Perhaps team batting average with runners in scoring position? Sometimes you need to look past the numbers and find a team with the right chemistry, the right makeup to win those 54 games. Maybe it’s the players, not the stats.

When I was sixteen years old, I felt like my world had been crushed when Carlton Fisk of the Red Sox hit the famous 12th inning home run to defeat the Reds in the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. Cincinnati had blown a 3-run lead in the eighth inning. After waiting so many years for the Reds to win the World Series, would we have to wait another year? Before the start of the seventh game, NBC sportscaster Curt Gowdy interviewed Pete Rose who called game 6 not a crushing defeat, but rather “the greatest game I’ve ever played in”. It was Rose’s will to win that enabled him to tie the game with a hit and later score the winning run in the deciding seventh game. And of course three years ago the 2016 Cubs (and Cubs fans of all ages) were saved in the seventh game of the Series by Jason Heyward’s will to win address in the clubhouse during the momentum changing 17-minute rain delay.

As the July 31 trading deadline looms mid-week, look for those teams who add a player or two to win those decisive games down the stretch. You know the ones; the players with the will to win!

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach