CHAVEZ REVINE, CA – While the east coast was sleeping this Friday night, something gross was happening in Dodgers Stadium. A Dodgers pitcher named Emmet Sheehan was making his Major League Baseball debut against the arch rival San Francisco. The 23-year-old righthander pitched six scoreless no-hit innings, while his team held a 4-0 lead. Then the unthinkable happened.
During the bottom of the sixth Sheehan’s manager, Dave Roberts, had both his hands on the rookie’s shoulders and uttered the most dreaded words of, “Nice job! Roberts, who is one of the most hated men to Yankees faithful for his infamous stolen base during the 2004 unforgettable playoffs, proceeded to do more damage to the NYC-born Sheehan. He replaced him with pitcher Brusdar Graterol. The righthander gave up a single and a home run to turn a 4-0 Dodgers lead into 4-2. The Giants wound up winning the game 7-5 in 11 innings.
I won’t crucify Roberts for the pitching change. He’s just the messenger for the real culprits: the ANALytics crew. You know them they hide behind their laptops and make these mindless moves. At the end of the game the poor manager is left to deal with the media while the decision-makers pour down their wine.
It’s been a growing trend that ANALytics is ruining this once great sport. Not only is the human element gone, but history in the making is being slaughtered by these geeks that teams employ. Only two pitchers have thrown no-hitters in their Major League debuts – Arizona Diamondbacks’ Tyler Gilbert accomplished the feat on August 14, 2021. Before him it was Bobo Holloman, who accomplished the feat on May 6, 1953. It also happened twice in the 19th century before the MLB was formed. With a pitch-count in the eighties the young arm of Sheehan surely could have gotten nine more outs. His manager also had to deliver the message to his ace Clayton Kershaw back on opening day 2022, when after seven perfect innings Roberts was programmed to make the removal after Kershaw’s pitch count was at eighty.
In the current generation of canceling history the sellout crowd at Friday night’s game, who were celebrating Pride Night, were denied something special. The owners who put these behind the scenes morons together need to take some real Pride and cancel them immediately. They should replace them with the baseball minds and common sense personnel. Do it before the Billy Ball Era completely turns this game into a kind of robotic boredom-fest, and tunes even us die-hards out.
