As Zifnab mentioned via IM and Rob Neyer discussed in his blog, Braves manager Bobby Cox pulled some interesting shenanigans in last night's game against the Pirates.
As described on a blog called Baseball Toaster, "With runners on first and third and one out in the top of 10th in Atlanta, Bobby Cox replaced pitcher Chris Resop with Royce Ring to pitch to Adam LaRoche. Resop moved to left field to replace Matt Diaz. After Ring struck out LaRoche, Resop moved back to the hill to face Xavier Nady. Gregor Blanco then entered the game as the new left fielder."
As discussed on Baseball Toaster, moves like this actually have a long history. I vaguely recall the 1986 Mets example that Baseball Toaster mentions. Pitchers have also shown up in outfields or other positions for different reasons. Eric Gagne played a little center field a couple of days ago, and I'm guessing that the Brewers are probably carrying 12 pitchers and ran out of position players. In games with many extra innings, one will occasionally see some really cool stuff like that. Here's one of my favorites: Years ago, in an extra inning game, the Cardinals had Jose DeLeon switching repeatedly with Tom Brunansky over who was in right field and who was in left field. Basically, the manager wanted Brunansky (a natural outfielder) to be the more likely guy to field the ball, so he was in right whenever a lefty was up and in left whenever a righty was up. They ended up switching every batter, so the announcers were like "Brunansky to left, DeLeon to right." And then one batter later it was "Brunansky to right, DeLeon to left."
There are some other classy ones. The Dodgers lost a game in inning 21 (I think it was 21) in 1989 (I think it was 89). The losing pitcher was third baseman Jeff Hamilton. First baseman Eddie Murray was at third base when the game ended, and pitcher Fernando Valenzuela finished the game at third. (Now we just need an extra inning game where Chin-Lung Hu moves around the field a lot...) More recently, Rockies catcher Brent Mayne actually earned a victory when he finished the game on the mound.
2 days ago
4 comments:
This boggles me!
In all of my leagues growing up, a pitcher who leaves the mound may not return -- or so I thought!
I just downloaded the NCAA rule book, apparently a pitcher can return to the mound once (but no more). Interestingly, there are certain rules under which the pitcher cannot return, mostly dealing with illegal coaching visits to the mound! There are a lot of obscure rules... there's a rule about balks that I didn't know at all, where you can pick a runner from the windup in a VERY deceptive manner -- I'm DEFINITELY gonna try that at the next Alumni game (the only league where I ever pitch).
If you think those rules are screwed up, then you should take a gander at the Major League Baseball blackout rules.
The MLB.tv blackouts really tick me off. I have neither cable nor satellite on account of being a poor grad student. My brother gave me a gift of a premium subscription to MLB.tv. This is usually great, except for Saturday Game of the Week. Those used to be my only baseball, but I can't watch them because over-the-air signals (caught through my old skool rabbit ears) are CRAP in Durham in general. Bah.
G: Agreed 100%! It mostly doesn't affect me anymore (though I wonder if they changed something within the last couple of days because I haven't gotten it to work in Edinburgh... it might be a firewall situation and I've been busy enough that I'm really not in the mood to fight this) because it looks like I still get all but the games with the most stringent blackouts, but on general principle it's still quite atrocious. And it's not like it actually helps them---such short-term penny-pinching will hinder the industry's growth, not help it. The blackout policy is just an epic failure.
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