Comments on The Immaculate Inning: Robbed By the Defense: Almost Perfect Games

That's a fair point, and the way I presented all t...

2008-07-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

That's a fair point, and the way I presented all this, in terms of "don't blame the defense," Bosman's defense shouldn't negate his pitching.

Still, there's something not right to me about awarding "perfection" to a man who was not perfect that day-- in the end, it was Bosman's fault that there was a baserunner. But, as The Baseball Project sing in the Harvey Haddix song, all perfection is flawed.

Of course, if Haddix really wanted to have a perfect game, he wouldn't have ground into a double play... ;-)

I'll disagree with you on Dick Bosman. The pitche...

2008-07-25T05:22:00.000-05:00

I'll disagree with you on Dick Bosman. The pitcher-as-fielder is considered separately from the pitcher-as-pitcher, and that's the way it should be. You're judging his pitching performance, and his fielding isn't relevant.

Think of it this way: if a batter reaches on a pitcher's error, would you count that in the pitcher's DIPS? Of course not, because it had nothing to do with his pitching.

Once the ball is hit to him, he's no longer a pitcher. He's just another infielder. That infielder's bad play shouldn't affect any evaluation of the pitcher's performance.