Moyer's slow-and-steady success doesn't make sense
LOS ANGELES -- You can pitch in the major leagues. I can pitch in the major leagues. Hell, what am I doing writing this column from the National League Championship Series? I should be pitching in the NLCS.
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| Jamie Moyer's so-called fastball shouldn't fool many big league hitters. (Getty Images) |
Seriously. And that's a compliment to Moyer. Most days, anyway.
Today, not so much. Today, Moyer is the losing pitcher of Game 3 of the NLCS after he was knocked around like he seemingly should have been knocked around his entire career. Moyer doesn't throw the ball so much as he oozes it. And on Sunday night, the Dodgers blasted him off the mound early in their 7-2 victory.
This is the kind of Jamie Moyer outing that makes sense -- not the 600-something outings that came before it.
Throw the ball like Moyer throws it, and you should be knocked around -- in high school. Granted, there is much to Major League Baseball that a non-MLB playing yokel like myself doesn't understand, starting with Prince Fielder's vegetarian-fueled obesity. Also high on that list is Moyer's ability to navigate most major league lineups with stuff that wouldn't intimidate a decent 16-year-old hitter.
Changing speeds, hitting spots, letting one pitch set up the next and the next ... these are things that don't make sense to me. Maybe you're saying they make sense to you, but you're lying. The concept, sure. The concept of Jamie Moyer can make sense. But the execution? It doesn't make sense. It can't. Not unless you've actually faced that sort of slop and have first-hand knowledge of how difficult it is to hit.
Because from here, from a viewpoint just off the field, that slop looks incredibly hittable. And that's exactly what it was Sunday night. The Dodgers hit Moyer, and hit him, and hit him. It didn't just look like batting practice. It was batting practice. Moyer was throwing 80 mph fastballs, and the Dodgers were doing what big-leaguers do to 80 mph fastballs. They were hitting ropes.
Moyer's first four strikes yielded three hits. After taking a strike, Rafael Furcal ripped one to left. Andre Ethier hit one to right. Manny Ramirez drilled one to left, scoring Furcal. Before the inning was finished, Casey Blake would drive in another run with a single, and Blake DeWitt -- who was born in 1985, one year after Moyer began his professional career -- would clear the bases with a double to right. It was 5-0.
It was 6-0 in the second when Furcal led off with a line shot over the wall in left.
Moyer was removed one batter later. The Dodgers had swung at exactly 12 of his pitches, and they had missed none of them. They had six hits in those 12 swings. This was Dodger Stadium, but it could have been your Thursday night softball league.
And Moyer probably would have been the oldest guy in your softball league, too.
As it is, Moyer is the oldest guy to start a postseason game since Jack Quinn, 46, started Game 4 of the 1929 World Series -- and Moyer is the oldest pitcher ever to start a league championship game. At 45 years and 329 days old, he's nearly 2 1/2 years older than the previous oldest guy, Phil Niekro, in 1982. Niekro made sense. He was throwing knuckleballs.
