Have you noticed the dominance of low scoring games and shut-outs?
Pitching has suddenly raised itself as the dominant factor in major league baseball.
When pitchers like Chris Sale tie a major league mark for consecutive games with 10 or more strikeouts, and commentators are starting to go back to mid-1960s records for pitching accomplishments, we are on the dawn of a new era of pitching dominance.
A factor in this could be that many teams have been promoting younger players faster. There have never been so many 21, and 22 year olds in the majors. The Cubs roster is filled with under 25 starters. The trend is clearly to go young before they grow old in the minors.
As younger hitters come to the majors, it is more likely that they will have a tougher transition to major league pitching since pitchers are better at location, ball movement and strategy. And there is a higher learning curve for most batters than pitchers.
One expects a dominate and quick pitching contest at the Cell today when Mark Buerhle faces Sale. Both pitchers work fast. Both pitchers do not go deep into counts since they are putting the ball into the strike zone more often than not. They get ahead in the count then put away hitters.
Currently, baseball has 23 starting pitchers with an ERA under 3.00. Led by Zack Greinke at 1.48 ERA, this shows a real dominance by pitchers this year.
