Baseball is insane

[Frobby]

I mean, you can’t make up stuff like what Matt Harvey is doing.   I’d given this guy up for dead.   Even when he had his great start coming out of the all star break, I figured it was just like the game Tillman had out of nowhere when he was done.  But now he’s done it three times in a row.  

And that’s why baseball is insane.  It’s vaguely predictable at times, but at the end of the day you always find out you didn’t quite know what you thought you knew.   
 

[Moose Milligan]

He's on a bit of a roll, but I don't think this is real.  Granted his FIP is better than his ERA by a good stretch so the ERA was probably going to come back to earth.

Not striking out enough batters for me to think this is real, but whatever.  Totally happy for the guy, he deserves another day in the sun and to enjoy pitching well.  He's been through a lot, it's great to see.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I think Harvey will course correct, but maybe he's finally turned the corner and will be a serviceable pitcher. 

[LA2]

The analysis gym he was at during the off-season confidently predicted a great comeback for him...it just took a few months longer than they expected. There must have been some crucial tweaks during the ASB. Can't be just the rest that Hyde cites because the last two starts have probably been on his regular turn.

[SteveA]

The amazing thing is that this is the longest scoreless stretch of his career.  Back when he was legitmately a top 10 pitcher in MLB he never reeled off 18 straight scoreless.

[Philip]

He will stop doing this as soon as we expect him to continue doing it, and we best be careful, lest Mike decide that it is real and give him Ubaldo money.

[Frobby]

28 minutes ago, SteveA said:

The amazing thing is that this is the longest scoreless stretch of his career.  Back when he was legitmately a top 10 pitcher in MLB he never reeled off 18 straight scoreless.

They said on the Postgame show that Harvey was only the fourth pitcher in O’s history to pitch three starts in a row of at least six innings without allowing a run.  I was really surprised that it had happened so few times.   The three pitchers were Jim Palmer, Fernando Valenzuela and Kevin Gausman.  I’d practically forgotten that Valenzuela pitched for the O’s one season.   He had a 4.94 ERA the year he pulled off the feat.   I’m really surprised that none of McNally, Cuellar, Flanagan, McGregor, Stone, Boddicker, Mussina or Bedard ever did this.   

[SteveA]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

They said on the Postgame show that Harvey was only the fourth pitcher in O’s history to pitch three starts in a row of at least six innings without allowing a run.  I was really surprised that it had happened so few times.   The three pitchers were Jim Palmer, Fernando Valenzuela and Kevin Gausman.  I’d practically forgotten that Valenzuela pitched for the O’s one season.   He had a 4.94 ERA the year he pulled off the feat.   I’m really surprised that none of McNally, Cuellar, Flanagan, McGregor, Stone, Boddicker, Mussina or Bedard ever did this.   

Part of it is because back in those days you almost always stayed in the game if you were pitching a shutout.  So to pitch 3 straight games of at least 6 innings without allowing a run, you practically had to pitch 3 straight CG shutouts.  A line of 6 innings 0 runs was a rarity, certainly in the 70s and earlier, and to some extent the 80s.

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Part of it is because back in those days you almost always stayed in the game if you were pitching a shutout.  So to pitch 3 straight games of at least 6 innings without allowing a run, you practically had to pitch 3 straight CG shutouts.  A line of 6 innings 0 runs was a rarity, certainly in the 70s and earlier, and to some extent the 80s.

Yes, that is what Palmer did.  On either side of it, he allowed 1 run in 7+ innings, and threw in one more shutout after that.     It was in the midst of an 8 game stretch in which he threw 67.1 innings to an ERA of 0.40, going 7-0 while the team won all 8 games.   

Yeah, we used to have a pitcher like that.  
 

[Aristotelian]

If only he could have done this *before* the trade deadline and then put up 8.00+ ERA after we traded him for a decent prospect. Still, very cool and absolutely insane!

[accinfo]

32 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yes, that is what Palmer did.  On either side of it, he allowed 1 run in 7+ innings, and threw in one more shutout after that.     It was in the midst of an 8 game stretch in which he threw 67.1 innings to an ERA of 0.40, going 7-0 while the team won all 8 games.   

Yeah, we used to have a pitcher like that.  
 

I don't think many Oriole fans realize how GREAT he was for so long.  He should have won two more Cy Youngs than he did.  

[accinfo]

4 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

If only he could have done this *before* the trade deadline and then put up 8.00+ ERA after we traded him for a decent prospect. Still, very cool and absolutely insane!

If he keeps this up for the rest of the season would you bring him back next season?  Obviously not scoreless streak forever but and ERA around 4 for the rest of the season.  

[survivedc]

6 minutes ago, accinfo said:

I don't think many Oriole fans realize how GREAT he was for so long.  He should have won two more Cy Youngs than he did.  

I think everyone realizes how great he was, it’s what makes the comeback so interesting.

But it wasn’t long, 2.5 seasons of Ace type pitching and then a pretty steep decline.

[accinfo]

Just now, survivedc said:

I think everyone realizes how great he was, it’s what makes the comeback so interesting.

But it wasn’t long, 2.5 seasons of Ace type pitching and then a pretty steep decline.

I was referring to Jim Palmer who Frobby was talking about in his post.

[survivedc]

1 minute ago, accinfo said:

I was referring to Jim Palmer who Frobby was talking about in his post.

Ah, didn’t see the quote! Palmer was incredible, Harvey is a “what could have been”