Ross Stripling made his MLB debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers Friday night against the San Francisco Giants. The right-hander hadn't given up a hit after retiring 22 batters, but his pitch count hit the vaunted No. 100 and manager Dave Roberts took him out of the game.
Roberts was booed - by Giants fans at AT&T Park, mind you - but both Stripling and Stripling's father didn't disagree with the decision. Stripling, 26, told reporters that he thought it was "the right choice" because he "was tired." Stripling's dad approached Roberts after the game and thanked him for looking out for his son's best interest (Stripling underwent Tommy John surgery, missed all of 2014 and pitched in just 14 games last year).
The Dodgers rookie has yet to pitch above Double-A, and he threw just 71-1/3 innings over 14 starts in the minors last year and he hadn't thrown more than 70 pitches in any of his spring starts. However, would a few extra pitches have really affected the health of his arm?
That's the controversy that we'll be dealing with for quite a while.
Stripling could have very well made history on Friday. He was five outs away from throwing a no-hitter in his MLB debut. How many times has that happened before?
"A guy named Bumpus Jones once threw a no-hitter in his big-league debut," wrote Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports. "That was in 1892. The mound was five feet closer to the plate than it is now. No one since, though."
On one end of the extreme, one thinks, "how can you remove a guy from the game who has been shutting down one of the best MLB offenses while also closing in on baseball history?" But then, there are the other, more cautious individuals who perhaps believe, "he was tired, the outing was perhaps bound to unravel, and it's not worth it for the Dodgers to put another player on the disabled list." Los Angeles started the year off with 10 players on the DL, and outfielder Carl Crawford just recently joined that list. Reliever Chris Hatcher is also now day-to-day with a knee issue.
The last thing that the Dodgers needed was another injury.
Then again, the last thing that they needed was causing this kind of commotion after a questionable offseason in which their division rivals markedly improved their rosters while the Dodgers front office encountered a number of failures.
At the end of the day, it's really a non-issue because both Stripling and his father had no problem with Roberts' decision (or whoever was responsible for making the call). Additionally, the Dodgers' intentions were good, as they were looking out for the youngster's health.
But it was only five outs. The batters that he would have likely faced were Trevor Brown, Ehire Adrianza, Denard Span, Joe Panik and Hunter Pence (assuming he retired five straight to complete the no-hitter), which would have been a doable feat since the first hit for the Giants came from Brown, who jacked a two-run homer to tie the game in the eighth when Hatcher relieved Stripling.
Additionally, the arbitrary nature surrounding the "100 pitch mark" has been questioned for a while now, considering that doctors have no definitive reason as to how/why UCL tears occur (or reoccur), other than the baseball pitching motion is an unnatural movement for the arm/elbow. A tear can happen on the fifth pitch or the 120th pitch of an outing; there's simply no way to forecast it.
Pitchers who undergo Tommy John, depending on their situations, are typically limited to the year after the surgery, and depending on their age, the team may have to work more extensively in terms of stretching out that pitcher so he can regain his stamina and build up his arm strength. It make sense, but there are always exceptions.
There were exceptions with Mets starter Matt Harvey last year when New York made their run to the World Series, and there will be exceptions as time goes on.
However, the Dodgers did not make any exceptions on Friday. Now those final five outs will forever remain a mystery - one that could have changed baseball history.
