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Two Baseball Writers Discuss the World Series

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from: Rany Jazayerli
to: Rob Neyer

The Yankees’ Secret Knuckleballer 

Updated Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001, at 2:56 PM ET

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Rob:

It’s funny you should mention that because I was thinking the same thing while watching Rivera pump fastball after fastball in there. No trickery, no deceit, and the Diamondbacks still couldn’t touch him.

Sure, there are a bunch of guys who have gotten by in the majors with essentially one pitch. They’re called knuckleballers.

And as crazy as it sounds, maybe that’s the best way to explain Rivera’s success. He doesn’t throw fastballs. He just throws knucklers at 95 mph. Think about it: Just like a knuckleball, his pitches dart in an unpredictable direction at the last moment, preventing the hitter from getting good wood on the ball. Like a knuckleballer, Rivera can be successful without great strikeout rates: Between 1998 and 2000, he struck out just 6.38 batters per nine innings, essentially the league average, but had a 2.23 ERA during that time.

And just like every knuckleballer from Tim Wakefield to Jim Bouton, Rivera’s late movement makes him a passed ball waiting to happen. Tim McCarver and Joe Buck mentioned Jorge Posada’s league-leading total of passed balls more than once, and passed balls are so associated with knuckleball pitchers that my first thought was, “Which of the Yankees throws a knuckler?” None of them do, of course, but I’d love to know how many of those passed balls occurred with Rivera on the mound, because his fastball might come close enough.

I find it surprising, in a sense, how little drama there has been in this Series so far. It’s not because the games have all been blowouts. On the contrary, last night’s game was a one-run affair, and Game 2 was until the seventh inning. It’s just that, to this point, every game has proceeded according to plan.

Conventional wisdom held that Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson gave Arizona an enormous advantage in the first two games, but that the back end of their rotation and their middle relief could be exploited. All three games have gone according to plan, which is in itself noteworthy because conventional wisdom goes 3-for-3 about as often as Dave Kingman did.

But starting with Game 4, you can throw CW out the door. If Brenly continues to manage without a sense of urgency and starts Batista, it opens the door for the Yankees to get back in this Series. If he brings back Curt Schilling on three days’ rest, he takes the risk that Schilling shows up without his best stuff and opens the door to all sorts of second-guessing. Either way, I think the Series is about to switch into another gear.

It’s funny that all the focus is on whether or not Schilling will come back on three days' rest tonight because I think it’s an equally worthy idea to bring Mike Mussina back on three days' rest. The Yankees, not the Diamondbacks, are down two games to one, and they’re the ones that need to be considering all their options. While Schilling threw 102 pitches in Game 1, Mussina threw only 68. What’s more, Andy Pettite threw only 80 pitches in Game 2, so he could come back in Game 5 pretty easily as well.

I’m not saying it’s going to happen, or even that it should happen. I’d just like to see the idea given some consideration. But it won’t happen, if only because no matter how poorly Orlando Hernandez pitched this season, he’s El Duque, and nobody is going to fault Joe Torre for sticking with him.

sports nut
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
from: Rany Jazayerli
to: Rob Neyer

The Yankees’ Secret Knuckleballer 

Updated Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001, at 2:56 PM ET
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Rob Neyer is a senior baseball writer with ESPN.com and his latest book is The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers. Rany Jazayerli is a writer for the Baseball Prospectus.
Photograph of Bob Brenly by Mike Blake/Reuters.
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