Baltimore’s BJ Ryan didn’t throw a pitch against the Detroit Tigers on May 1, 2003 and ended up recorded as the winner. With the Orioles behind in the 7th he came on in relief of Pat Hentgen and picked off Omar Infante to end the inning. In the top of the 8th the Birds scored three to take the lead which they would not surrender and Buddy Groom replaced Ryan to pitch the 8th.
BJ Ryan William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 5-1-20
The rule for determining the winning pitcher is one of those things my dad and I argue about. Interestingly, he doesn’t like the rule, and I have no problem with it. I put that down more to our worldviews than anything else, though-he’s a liberal, and I’m conservative.
However, we both agree that baseball should implement a third-strike foul rule, like softball has: If the batter has 2 strikes, and hits a foul ball, it’s strike 3 and he’s out. That would speed up the game immensely, more than any of the other ineffectual things that MLB is messing with. That, and enforce calling the strike zone consistently, as defined.
Mound visits, pitching changes-these things don’t waste time as much as a batter who swings at a dozen questionable pitches, fouling them all off, because he’s not sure that the pitch is a strike or not, and the umpire’s zone is elastic from one at-bat to the next. Foul ball strike 3-that means at at-bat runs to 6 pitches at most, and games are back down under 2 hours.
I think I’m too much of a traditionalist for that. I like the pitchless intentional walk, though.
I don’t like the pitchless intentional walk so much, because it eliminates the batter’s right to take a swing at the pitch and put the ball in play, if he chooses. I think that’s another move MLB has made, that has no real impact on the duration of the game.