By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer
In the fourth inning of Game 3, Braves pitcher Ian Anderson lined a ball right at Houston first baseman Yuli Gurriel.
This wasn’t a traditional lineout, as Anderson only hit it 71.9 miles per hour, but for a brief moment, the batted ball resembled a hit. Instead, it nestled comfortably into Gurriel’s glove and pitchers moved to 2-for-44 at the plate this postseason.
Had Anderson’s poke found outfield grass, it very well might have been the final hit from a pitcher in MLB history. With a new collective bargaining agreement on the horizon this offseason, the prevailing sentiment around the game is that the National League will have a designated hitter starting in 2022, effectively closing a book on more than a century of offensively bad offense from pitchers.
For many baseball watchers, me included, the universal DH will be a welcome change. Pitchers absolutely stink at hitting, even the good ones. Madison Bumgarner is one of the best hitting pitchers of his era, and he still sucks eggs relative to even a bad hitter. The all-time slash line for pitchers in the Integration Era (since 1947) is .148/.188/.189. That’s abysmal.
Next year, those plate appearances will go to large, position-less sluggers like Rowdy Tellez and Dan Vogelbach and Nelson Cruz and Albert Pujols. You know, guys who actually practice hitting. If you’re not a universal DH stan, I promise you, two months of it and you’ll love it. If you watch future NL DH Aristedes Aquino smash a ball 460 feet and your first thought is, "Damn, I wish I had gotten to watch Wade Miley strike out instead," I don’t really know what to tell you.
But before we enter that beautiful future, there are two more games left in the ‘Pitchers Getting To Hit’ era. As things stand, if no pitcher slaps a base knock in either Game 4 or Game 5, then the final pitcher hit will forever belong to mustachioed Dodgers hurler and cat enthusiast Tony Gonsolin. Behold this relic to-be.
This infield dribbler from Game 1 of the NLCS might seem like an unworthy final pitcher hit, but Gonsolin is actually a worthy final holder of the crown. As a two-way player at St. Mary’s College, Gonsolin absolutely raked. He slashed .305/.383/.453 and hit 11 home runs over his four years there.
The final pitcher home run –– unless a Brave or an Astro does the improbable –– will forever belong to Logan Webb, who enjoyed a superb breakout season with the Giants. Webb’s ultimate blast came on the final day of the regular season and helped San Francisco clinch the division title over the Dodgers.
It was the first home run of Webb’s professional career. He was drafted right out of high school and didn’t play college ball, so as far as we know it was his first-ever home run, and with two World Series bullpen games incoming, likely baseball’s last-ever pitcher home run.
Anderson, who chucked five hitless innings in Game 3, admitted on the off-day that he and fellow Braves starter Max Fried had talked about this being the end of the road for pitchers hitting.
"It's unfortunate that [Fried] had to pitch in the American League game because he definitely had a better chance than I did to get a hit," Anderson said. "I think it's definitely going to be pretty special that this could be the last pitchers ever hitting in baseball."
Zack Greinke, who is the favorite to start Game 4 for Houston, would be a picture-perfect figure to put the final stamp on the epoch of pitchers hitting. He’s been one of the league’s better-hitting pitchers since debuting in 2004 (nine career homers) despite spending the first seven years of his career in the American League with Kansas City. His .225 career average and his .598 career OPS are both better than that of Atlanta catcher Jeff Mathis.
But with Greinke a much-diminished version of himself on the mound, it’s very unlikely that he’ll be allowed to face the Braves' order more than once and should, unfortunately, get replaced by a pinch hitter. Atlanta has yet to announce a starter for Games 4 or 5, but with Charlie Morton cooked for the year with a broken leg, those will both almost certainly be bullpen games.
That leaves Framber Valdez. Valdez has just four career plate appearances. He has two strikeouts and no hits. He is not the hero we’re looking for. So unless Greinke dials back the clock and the Astros let him hit, or Framber shocks the world, Gonsolin and his infield dribbler will live forever.
But before we close the book, let’s revisit some of the greatest chapters. Because even though as a whole, pitchers hitting is a waste of time and a sight for sore eyes, there have been some unforgettable moments. And none were more gripping, more shocking and more wonderful than Bartolo Colon’s first career homer in 2016. A true, ‘I will never forget where I was when it happened’ baseball moment.
*in memoriam music plays*
There was Brandon Woodruff going yard off Clayton Kershaw in the 2018 NLCS. Reliever Daniel Camarena homering off Max Scherzer this year in his first career plate appearance. Jon Lester’s first homer after a record-breaking 0-for-66 start to his career. Felix Hernández hitting a grand slam at Shea Stadium with Dave Niehaus on the call. All those times Bumgarner went big fly against Kershaw. CC Sabathia’s jack down the line at Dodger Stadium. Archie Bradley’s triple in the wild-card game. The list goes on and on.
Change is coming and change is good. All these moments are unpredictable and entertaining, but only because we sit through so much pitcher-hitting monotony. But let’s enjoy these last two days, let’s cherish this setting sun, and maybe, just maybe Framber Valdez will leave us with one final jaw-dropping dinger.
Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.
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