DerpyAlex2

Drop whatever you're doing, folks You wanna know why I'm tough on Peter Bendix? You wanna know why John VanderWal and other former MLB players are apoplectic over the increasingly vice-like grip of analytics on in-game baseball decisions? It's because the Bendix playbook includes the possibility of pulling a pitcher with a perfect game in progress through 7 innings and sitting at just 92 pitches, depriving him of the exceedingly rare opportunity to pursue baseball immortality on a night where everything was working and couldn't be touched. A generation ago, this would have been inconceivable. You don't have to reach too far back to grasp an era in which it would have been a foregone conclusion that Eury Perez would go back out there for the 8th, and if he remained perfect, then again for the 9th. Short of a grievous injury or losing the perfect game, nothing would stop him from taking the mound and chasing those last six outs, and nothing would stop his manager from letting him. It might have taken him 120 or 125 pitches, or about *half* as many as Nolan Ryan was known to throw during some of his wilder outings. Perez is a 23-year-old professional athlete standing 6'8" with a body and mechanics that have been finely tuned for the very specific task of throwing a baseball; he'd live to fight another day, and to make his next scheduled start. (Kids are resilient, and even more so when they have the benefit of the best training, nutrition, therapies, and recovery that professional sports can offer.) Perez deserved the opportunity to chase greatness tonight and to finish what he started, but when the strings are being pulled by folks that never threw a baseball and don't know what it feels like to be in that flow state, to feel invincible and unhittable, to know you can't be touched... this is what happens. Perez left the game with an 8-0 lead after throwing his 7 perfect innings, and Miami barely hung on to win the ballgame by just ONE run after their bullpen gave up 5 runs in the 8th and 3 more in the 9th. Because the Marlins ultimately won the game 9-8, half of you still think Peter Bendix is a genius. (It's that half of the population that John VanderWal is mad at.)

Alex²