When the White Sox gave up five (5) unearned runs in the 5-2 loss to the Dodgers, pitcher Carlos Quintana got nailed with the loss.
But clearly, Quintana was the cause for the team loss. He made pitches that were hit to his fielders, who made the actual errors, putting runners in scoring position and eventually scoring.
Like quarterbacks and presidents who get too much credit when things are going well, pitchers get too much blame when things go wrong.
The debate about the value of the "win" statistic for pitchers is as apt for the value of the "loss" statistic for pitchers. There is more than one variable involved in the decision on who wins a game. Jeff Samardzija has pitched well enough to win 10 games like Mark Buerhle, but the Shark got no run support from the Cubs. but Samardzija is tagged with losses in those games.
One can weakly argue that a pitcher could be perfect and shut out the opponent to avoid the loss. But that is nearly impossible task as baseball has tweaked its rules to increase the amount of offense.
A better argument is that the win-loss statistic should be purely a "team stat." A pitcher should be primarily judged on his ERA, WHIP and IP. Except, historically, pitchers did throw complete games (there was only a 2 or 3 man rotation and no specialized bullpens) so a hurler's W-L record did accurately reflect his performance.
But a starter in order to qualify for a win must throw 5 innings; but can get tagged with a loss by not getting out of the first. A relief pitcher can get one out and get the win or the loss. There was once a proposal to allow the official scorer to give the "win" to the best pitcher on the winning team and the "loss" to the worst pitcher on the losing team. But that brought opinion into objective baseball statistics so the proposal was quickly dropped.
What came as a pitching stat change was the "save," a statistic that illogically values the final three outs more importantly than the first three outs of a game. It gave washed up starters the opportunity to become millionaire closers. A game can be won or lost in any inning, not just the 9th.
If a win is a nebulous pitching performance statistic, then the save is probably more over rated than a win. In fact, a closer can have a "blown save" then get the win if his team comes back to break the tie and win the game. In essence, the winning closer is rewarded for his bad performance.
The win and loss statistics for pitchers are not complete measurement of a player's performance. However, the historical basis for the W-L record of pitchers is still used as a means of comparing pitchers today and pitchers from yesterday. No one today can fathom Cy Young's 511 pitching victories. Most pundits believe we may never see another 300 game winner in the majors (average 15 wins over 15 seasons).
