Sabathia's Latest Masterpiece---A No-Hitter Or Not?

• Should the official scoring be changed in C.C. Sabathia's no-hitter/one-hitter?

In case anyone missed it, C.C. Sabathia pitched a one-hit shutout over the Pirates yesterday in which the sole hit was a little dribbler in front of the plate by Andy LaRoche that

was ruled a base hit----ESPN Story and Video Clip. The Brewers were livid after the game with manager Ned Yost being the most vocal about wanting the scoring changed so Sabathia is awarded a no-hitter. I don't see any way possible that this can be done and still have it considered a genuine no-hitter. There's a big difference between a pitcher going for a no-hitter and going for a one-hitter with or without a big lead on the scoreboard.
So what's the etiquette here? Is the MLB commissioner's office supposed to make the change on an official scorer's judgment call and "award" Sabathia a disputed no-hitter? If the change is made, what's going to happen? Before the next game immediately following the scoring change, are the Brewers going to gather on the field with Sabathia on the mound, pause for a moment and have Sabathia jump into the air as some sort of continuation of the game as it should have been with a canned celebration for the highlight reels?
Never mind the fact that the official scorer, Bob Webb, has twenty years experience in official scoring and made the call immediately; or that the no-hitter would forever be disputed as to whether or not it was a legitimate no-hitter; is this even that big of a deal? A no-hitter, as great an accomplishment as it is, isn't seen as a huge career highlight for most pitchers

who've had great careers. Tom Seaver has always said that the no-hitter was way down on his list of milestones. Sabathia's not some journeyman who'll have nothing else to look back on in his career; the guy has a Cy Young Award and is putting himself into contention for the award this season in the opposite league based on his dominating work since joining the Brewers; and he didn't even seem all that bothered about the scoring himself, so why are his teammates and management going so crazy?
Truth be told, in watching the replay of the call, I would've ruled it as an error, but it's a call that the official scorer is responsible for and he said it's a hit, so it's a hit and should stay that way; and if it was such a problem the umpires have the power to make the change in scoring if they deem it necessary, so why wasn't that change made by the umpiring crew if it were such an egregious call? I don't know how this is going to turn out, but if I were in the MLB front office, I would save all the grief that comes along with making such a change and awarding a post-game no-hitter by standing by the official scoring because it was a call that could have gone either way with a justifiable argument for both sides. What's done is done.

• Could Sabathia steal the Cy Young Award from Brandon Webb?

A more fascinating debate is going to be held if Sabathia continues his current dominance over the last month of the season and ends with a record of 14-1 or 15-0 for the Brewers and if

Brandon Webb continues to struggle----could Sabathia, based on a half-season of work win the National League Cy Young Award?
Such an occurrance (a pitcher traded at mid-season and being so brilliant that he wins the Cy Young Award for half a season) isn't unprecedented. Rick Sutcliffe went 16-1 after being acquired by the Cubs from the Indians in 1984 and won the award over other qualified candidates like Dwight Gooden and Bruce Sutter based on his flashy record, brilliance and that he carried the Cubs to their first playoff spot in 39 years.
Even if Webb goes, say 2-2 the rest of this season, he'll end with a record of 21-8 and will

get some votes based on that and because he was so brilliant early in the season; but he's been awful over his past two starts (lending credence to the implication that he's not 100% healthy). If Sabathia is as great as he's been so far and leads the Brewers into the playoffs and Webb continues to pitch poorly and the Diamondbacks miss the playoffs, Sabathia might steal the award from him and there would be good reason to give it to him. It's one thing for a pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Young Awards and to even do it in different leagues with different teams, but for a guy to win the second of the awards only after joining the new team in mid-July would be unbelievable, but it's becoming more possible by the day.

• From this week's Joe Morgan files of "What is he talking about?":

I used to live in an apartment near the elevated trains in Brooklyn and people would ask how we used to deal with the noise, but after so many years, we didn't even notice it. I've gotten to the point where Joe Morgan is like background noise that I hear every day and has turned into something that is easy to ignore as if it doesn't even exist, but he still has that

uncanny ability to say something that is so completely absurd that I have to stop, scrunch up my face, shake my head, look around and say, "What?!?"
Morgan and his partner Jon Miller (who must have the patience of Gandhi) were discussing the Sabathia no-hitter/one-hitter and Morgan came up with a new interpretation of the rules that I'd never heard before. Morgan's asserted that there was a "rule" that the official scorer was required to make sure that the first hit recorded is a "clean" hit. By that logic, the Andy LaRoche grounder to Sabathia would've been recorded as an error whether it was an error or not; by that logic, if a guy like Jose Reyes leads off the game with a bunt, then it's not allowed to be a base hit because it was the first hit of the game and the scorer is under the edict that the first hit of the game has to be a line shot to center field or something of that nature; by that logic, if a guy takes a home run cut, hits the ball off the end of the bat and has it bounce thirty times down the third base line and stay fair, it's not a base hit no matter the inning or situation whether it's the first inning, the fifth inning or the eighth inning.
I have no response to this. There's really nothing to say other than perhaps Joe Morgan

should consider moving to the broadcast booth for professional wrestling because he's starting remind me of the late former wrestler/broadcaster Gorilla Monsoon who would say things like "Hulk Hogan has literally been on the shelf for the past month" meaning that Hogan was physically sitting on a shelf. I don't know where or what to say or do with Joe Morgan other than shake my head in bewilderment and laugh because the man's in a world all his own.

Tim Lincecum's Mechanics And The Bandwagon Jumpers

Tom Verducci wrote the cover story about Giants ace Tim Lincecum in this week's Sports

Illustrated----SI Story----and as usual whenever someone new and unusual bursts onto the scene there are the criticisms of those who think in the "conventional" way and make decisions based on categories other than velocity and results. Lincecum's father, Chris, is quoted extensively regarding the unusual motion and regimen used by his soon-to-be All Star son; along the way, other pitchers like Mark Prior, whose mechanics were considered "state-of-the-art" just five short years ago are suddenly being ripped because their mechanics turned out to be not quite as great as everyone thought.
Lincecum is healthy, throws bullets and uses an unusual motion that has been compared

(in certain aspects) to Orel Hershiser; there's another pitcher I see in addition to Hershiser when watching Lincecum as he uses the mirror image glove and hand extension

and hooks the ball skyward behind his back, then uses a very long stride----Rick Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe also happened to be 6'7", which would make Lincecum nearly a foot shorter. In the article, much is made of Chris Lincecum's insistence that the coaches that ran Tim's teams not fool around with the specially designed delivery.
Amid all the criticisms of pitchers like Prior and the required ravaging of teams that dared to take other players over Lincecum due to size and injury-concerns, the question left unasked is how many pitchers make it to the big leagues as quickly and successfully as Lincecum? Luke Hochevar and Brandon Morrow, two pitchers drafted before Lincecum, are big, hard throwers who haven't established themselves in the majors to any reasonable degree as of yet; that doesn't mean that they won't end up having better careers than Lincecum; Lincecum just happened to make it faster and has an interesting storyline of an unusual way of going about his job and that he's so small it's hard to imagine him launching fastballs at the velocity he does.
One thing that would have been useful between the lines was how many coaches and self-styled "experts" looked at Lincecum as he was coming up, folded their arms and tilted and shook their heads in disapproval and said, publicly or privately, "that kid's never gonna make it at his size with those mechanics and I don't care how hard he throws." It begs the question of how many talented pitchers and hitters had their natural way of doing things changed, altered and destroyed by coaches demanding that they do things "their" way or not play. Tim was lucky in that he had Chris around to keep an eye on him and the goods in that 98-mph fastball to back up the demands.
The thing about pitchers is that there's no way to know how long they're going to be able to

hold up before breaking down regardless of their mechanics. Pitch counts, computer generated mechanics and corrections and better exercise technology are supposed to keep them healthy, but there seem to be more injuries from less exertion than ever. It may be time to reexamine

everything that is believed about pitchers and how they're selected from the ground up. Pitchers like Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens and Lincecum have been called "freaks of nature"; but Ryan and Carlton had excellent mechanics and above-and-beyond work ethics; Clemens apparently had chemical assistance; and Lincecum has his own way of doing things and the important factor of having a father who wouldn't allow others to arrogantly and condescendingly mess around with him.
I have a problem with calling someone who does something well and stays healthy a freak, and those that do something well and get injured are considered normal. Ryan and Carlton never heard of a thing called pitch counts as they sometimes racked up 200+ pitches a start with all the walks, strikeouts and complete games. Even with the drug allegations, Clemens kept himself in great shape and was always fine-tuning his motion to maximize effectiveness while minimizing injury.
There have been pitchers like John Smoltz who gave everything they had on the mound and got hurt despite having great mechanics. The Kansas City Royals of the mid-80s developed four pitchers----Bret Saberhagen, David Cone, Danny Jackson and Mark Gubicza----who had

mechanics focusing on hard leg drive and power pitching similar to that of Ryan and Tom Seaver and the only one to stay completely healthy for the duration of his career was Cone and Cone battered himself (on and off the field) more than any of the four. Sutcliffe had numerous arm injuries throughout his career, as did Hershiser.
The computer generated motions and mechanics are all well and good, but if a pitcher is destined to get hurt, he's going to get hurt no matter his mechanics. Steps can be taken to minimize injury and with Lincecum, he's doing such radically different things before and after starts with stretching and declining to ice his arm, he may be starting a new era or it may be seen as having been a mistake after a few years; the only way to be able to tell will be in hindsight; right now Lincecum is the flavor of the moment, but in five years, the same credit may turn into criticism and instead of crediting the Giants for drafting Lincecum and leaving him alone, the Royals may get the same credit for selecting Hochevar. The only thing that will truly determine the outcome will be after the fact.