The talk shows are buzzing about this season's the golden age of golden arms. No one can decide who is the "best" pitcher in baseball.
The nominees each have put up some long term staggering numbers.
Chris Sale, 27, has been perfect this season. He is 9-0, 1.58 ERA, 3 complete games, 0.717 WHIP and 3.1 WAR. Being "9-0 in Nine
Starts/ERA Under 2.00 Club"puts him ahead of Pedro Martinez in 1997 and Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, when they went 8-0 in their first eight starts. Sale's start win total is the best in franchise history since 1919.
Clayton Kershaw, 28, is currently 6-1, 1.67 ERA, 2 shout outs, 0.700 WHIP and 2.8 WAR. Kershaw has
faced 253 hitters this year -- and walked four of them. That is an unheard-of 88-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Kershaw has six
straight double-figure strikeout games that have included a TOTAL of two
walks. The man who bears the weight of his franchise every time he goes
out there, averages more outs per start (23) than any pitcher in the
sport and owns the late innings like no other starter alive. He has now
faced 54 hitters from the seventh inning on. Seven have somehow reached
base. Not a one has scored.
Jake Arrieta, 30, is 7-0, 1.29 ERA, 0.839 WHIP and 2.4 WAR. His team has won his last 21 regular game starts, the most in the history of baseball. He has pitched two no hitters in less than a year. In between no hitters, Arrieta was 15-0 with a 0.65 ERA. If you look back 24 starts, his record gets better at 20-1. 0.86 ERA with 91 hits allowed over
178 innings, 173 strikeouts, 33 walks and 0.697 WHIP.
There is one thing in common with all three of these outstanding pitchers. Each has a funky delivery. Sale buggy whips his entire lean frame into every pitch. Kershaw has a jerky arm motion. Arrieta teeters then throws across his body. And the unorthodox deliveries may be the key to their collective success.
Hitters need to locate each pitch as quick as possible. Fractions of seconds count when a baseball is spinning 90 mph at you. Hitters need to find a pitcher's release point, then the rotation on the seems to instantaneously determine if it is a fastball, or a curve. Any delay in recognition means the pitcher has a greater advantage over the hitter.
Another factor is that these pitchers have learned not be "throwers" trying to blow away hitters for strike outs. They are "pitchers" who have mastered their craft to conserve energy, locate pitches, pitch to contact and find hitter weaknesses.
We are less than a third through the 2016 season and the press is in awe with the quality of starting pitching with more stories about the Cy Young races.
