Strike Back

ERA Amendments Better starting pitching is one reason that fewer runs have been scored per game so far in 1997 than in any major league season since 1992 (the year before the last round of expansion). Here are the teams whose starters had the best combined ERA in each league through Sunday, the ERA for the same teams' starters last year and the corresponding stats for all starters in both leagues.
	1997	1996		1997	1996
AL TEAM	ERA	ERA	NL TEAM	ERA	ERA
Blue Jays	3.54	4.76	Braves	2.69	3.45*
Yankees	3.59	4.96	Dodgers	3.02	3.51
Orioles	3.82	5.47	Mets	3.12	4.38
Royals	3.82	4.37*	Marlins	3.36	3.76
Tigers	3.95	6.64	Cardinals	3.39	4.20
LEAGUE	4.61	5.17	LEAGUE	3.84	4.30
Source: Elias Sports Bureau * League leader

On his way to the Yankee Stadium mound on May 21, after warming up in the bullpen behind the leftfield wall, Toronto Blue Jays righthander Roger Clemens wiped some sweat from his brow and rubbed it respectfully on the bust of Babe Ruth in centerfield. Later, upon departing the mound, Clemens scooped up a fistful of dirt to take home in remembrance of his 200th career victory: a 4-1 gem in which he whiffed 12 New York batters in eight innings. He had just shown how major league pitchers have responded to the record-breaking slugfest of the 1996 season. They've said, That's history.

The real dirt on this season is that pitchers have regained some respect after a year in which a record 16 players had at least 40 home runs and only a half-dozen pitchers kept their ERAs to less than 3.00. This year, while homers and runs per game have slipped noticeably, 26 pitchers who have worked enough innings to make the ERA standings had sub-3.00 ERAs at week's end. With nearly one third of the season played, top pitchers were again putting up top numbers.

Through Sunday the pitchers with the six best ERAs in the American League—Clemens and Pat Hentgen of Toronto, Scott Erickson and Jimmy Key of the Baltimore Orioles, and David Cone and Andy Pettitte of the Yankees—all were former Cy Young Award winners or runners-up, and each boasted an ERA no worse than 2.50. Righthander Pedro Martinez of the Montreal Expos (1.17) led seven other pitchers in the National League with ERAs of less than 2.50, including the Atlanta Braves' üher-righthander, Greg Maddux (1.44), who seems impervious to the game's fluctuations. "Maybe now you have the pitchers who are going to have monster years," says Hentgen, whose streak of 40 innings without allowing an earned run was ended by the Anaheim Angels on Sunday.

If the poster player for last year was Brady Anderson, the Orioles leadoff hitter who had never hit more than 21 home runs in a season but went deep 50 times in 1996, this year it might be Yankees outfielder Paul O'Neill, awestruck as he departed the clubhouse after Clemens had dominated New York. With raised eyebrows, O'Neill shook his head and, in tribute to Clemens, said only, "Wow!"

Even pitchers without Clemens's overpowering stuff have found unprecedented success this year. Journeymen hurlers such as Mark Gardner of the San Francisco Giants, Jamie Moyer of the Seattle Mariners, Rick Reed of the New York Mets and Bobby Witt of the Texas Rangers have prospered as unexpectedly as Anderson, Scott Brosius of the Oakland As, Steve Finley of the San Diego Padres and Craig Paquette of the Kansas City Royals did in the power department in 1996. Last season's Henry Rodriguez (20 homers through May for the Expos) is this season's Jeff Juden (5-0 with the Expos, his fourth team in five years).

Witt, nearly 2,000 innings into his career, is an example of that rare breed in baseball: pitchers past the age of 30 who suddenly blossom. The recent success of the 33-year-old righthander, who became just the third pitcher in Rangers history to start a season 7-0, and a handful of other thirty-somethings explains why the search for late bloomers never ends. Reed, who is 32 and had a 9-15 career record with four organizations before this season, made his first Opening Day roster this year; through Sunday he was 3-2 and ranked fourth in the National League with a 1.72 ERA. Moyer, 34, was 4-1 with the Mariners, his sixth organization, and 25-10 since the beginning of 1995, when he had a 51-70 lifetime record. Gardner, 35, was 18-8 over the past two seasons with the Giants after having gone 41-48 with three other clubs.

No turnaround, though, has been as drastic as Witt's. He was only 21 when he was rushed into the big leagues in 1986, and he led the American League in walks three times in his first four seasons. He once walked 10 batters and struck out 10 in the same game. "If I fell behind," he says, "I'd just rare back, throw a fastball and say, 'Here it is. Hit it.' A lot of times they did."

Last season Witt had the second-worst ERA in Rangers history (5.41) among those who qualified for the league title, but he had streaks of remarkable control on his fastball (which, with age, had lost some of its steam). Texas pitching coach Dick Bosman suggested minor mechanical adjustments to give him better balance through his delivery, and over the winter Witt worked on a changeup and a two-seam fastball, which has a sinking action. "I've learned movement is better than velocity," he says. "I wish I'd had the wisdom I have now when I started out."

Meanwhile, Anderson, Brosius, Finley and Paquette, who hit a combined 124 home runs last year, had only 14 through Sunday—proving again that the most consistent power is that of gravity. Welcome back to earth. With the possible exception of Jeff Kent of the San Francisco Giants, the home run and RBI leader boards include no surprises this year.

"Anytime so much attention has been devoted to a lack of pitching, as it was last year, people are going to try to remedy the situation," Toronto general manager Gord Ash says. "The top teams might be the same, and the middle ones might be the same, but I think the bottom teams have improved, and that's producing the better numbers."