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Mariners vs. Yankees |
Mets vs. Cardinals
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Monday, October 16
Kile blames bad pitches, not lack of rest
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- It's only one day. One day of rest.
And theoretically, one extra day of rest shouldn't mean that much. Not for a pitcher who had gone to the mound just 36 times in the 195 days since Opening Day.
But the Darryl Kile who took the baseball at Shea Stadium on Sunday night was not the same Darryl Kile who won 20 games this season.
|  | | By the time Darryl Kile knew what hit him in the first inning, the Mets had an LCS-record five doubles and a 4-2 lead. |
The Darryl Kile who made this start was not the same Darryl Kile who had a 3.21 ERA in his first two starts of the 2000 postseason, either.
But this Darryl Kile was pitching on three days' rest -- not four.
This Darryl Kile was bludgeoned for five doubles and four runs in the first inning.
This Darryl Kile gave up as many runs in his first inning and two-thirds of this game (seven) as he'd given
up in 21 innings over the three previous postseason starts of his career.
Most important, this Darryl Kile buried the St. Louis Cardinals in a hole so deep, they never recovered in a 10-6 loss to the New York Mets in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.
And now the question is this: Did he also bury his team in a hole so deep -- down, three games to one now -- that it can't recover?
"This was definitely a big loss," Kile said after his worst start of the year in places not located in the scenic state of Colorado (where he gave up 11 runs one night in April). "But this thing's not over. Not yet."
Technically speaking, he's right, of course. It takes four losses to end this series, and the Cardinals only have three.
Last time they played in an NLCS, in fact, the Cardinals were the team holding a three-games-to-one lead (over Atlanta in 1996). And there are still a few survivors from that series who can remember that it was the Braves who played in the World Series that year, not them.
So anything is possible. But possible is different than probable -- especially when Mike Hampton and Al Leiter are awaiting in Games 5 and 6.
So last night was a game the Cardinals absolutely, positively had to win. And last night, they got a very different effort out of their No. 1 starter than the effort they needed.
SEVEN runs. In three rocky innings.
It was hard not to notice that except for that game in Colorado, Kile hadn't allowed that many runs in any start this season. It was also hard not to notice that none of those other starts was on three days' rest. But this one was. You can make up your own mind if that was coincidence or not.
"That had nothing to do with this," Kile snapped. "If you go out and make good pitches, it doesn't matter if you're going on one day's rest. I made a lot of bad pitches. And they hit every one."
He took a 2-0 lead to the mound with him to the bottom of the first. Little did he know that would be the high point of his evening.
It was all downhill once he started to throw the baseball. He immediately did something no pitcher had ever done in any postseason baseball game ever played: He gave up four straight doubles.
A Timo Perez gapper to right-center.
An Edgardo Alfonzo bullet over the first-base bag.
A Mike Piazza tracer over J.D. Drew's head in right.
A Robin Ventura shot to the track in right-center.
Then came an intermission for a Todd Zeile out, followed by yet another double -- a Benny Agbayani smoker halfway up the wall in left-center.
It all happened so fast. Five doubles in a span of six hitters. Five fastballs out over the plate, all of which got pounded. It looked like one of those arcade games, where the little silver men kept going round and round.
"Our outfielders got some running in in that inning," said first baseman Will Clark. "I'll tell you that. They were working on their sprints out there."
Those outfielders were working on no days' rest, too. Which would be three fewer than their starting pitcher. But you didn't hear them complain. And one thing you can say for Kile is that he didn't complain, either.
He stood at his locker afterward, eyes pointed straight at the floor, his face empty, and answered the questions. Every one of them was a variation on the same theme: How much did that lost day of rest hurt him? And every answer was also a variation on the same theme: That ain't what happened, pal.
"I warmed up great," he said. "I felt great. I felt strong. But it all comes down to making good pitches, and I didn't make any. I threw a lot of hittable pitches. And they hit every one."
But down the corridor in the Mets' locker room, the view looked strikingly different. From the other end of the corridor, Darryl Kile didn't look as great or as strong as he thought he was.
"I didn't notice a lot of 92- to 94-mile-per-hour fastballs," said Zeile, whose two-run double off Kile in the second inning made it a 6-2 game. "They were mostly 86, 88. He was trying to get movement, it looked like. And the few times he was able to do that, we were able to lay off those balls.
"It seemed like the balls that got hit tonight were mostly fastballs -- and in counts where he had to come in with fastballs over the plate."
But when Kile was told that the Mets thought his fastball lacked its usual zip, he disputed that assessment, too.
"I think when my ball is up, it's not as live," Kile said. "When it's down, it's a little tougher to handle. But I got a lot of these balls up, and they capitalized."
If all that sounds plausible to you, great. But also remember this:
Kile was the eighth pitcher in the last two postseasons to make a start on three days' rest. Not one of them has won. After Kile's debacle, they're now 0-4, with four no-decisions, and an abominable 19.11 ERA.
That doesn't seem like a coincidence. That seems like a trend. Here's the complete list:
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More rest required
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Pitcher
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Team
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Series
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IP
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Hits
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ER
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Dec.
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Darryl Kile
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Cardinals
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2000 NLCS
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3
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8
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7
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Loss |
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Andy Pettitte
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Yankees
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2000 ALDS
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3.2
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10
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5
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ND
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Roger Clemens
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Yankees
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2000 ALDS
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5
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6
|
6
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Loss
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Charles Nagy
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Indians
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1999 ALDS
|
3
|
6
|
7
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Loss
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|
Bret Saberhagen
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Red Sox
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1999 ALDS
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1
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4
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5
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ND
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Bartolo Colon
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Indians
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1999 ALDS
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1
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6
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7
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Loss
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Shane Reynolds
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Astros
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1999 NLDS
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5
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9
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4
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Loss
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Al Leiter
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Mets
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1999 NLCS
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0
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2
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5
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ND
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One of the eight pitchers who tried that was also in Shea Stadium Sunday night. That would be Leiter, who started against the Braves on three days' rest last October, in Game 6 of the NLCS -- and got nobody out.
He faced five hitters. They all reached base. They all scored.
And 12 months later, Leiter doesn't deny that working on three days' rest was a factor in what happened to him that night.
"I think that played on my mind a little bit," Leiter admitted. "If I'm ever given a choice between pitching one day earlier or one day later, I'd much rather pitch on the sixth day than the fourth. Ask a guy like Hampton, and he wouldn't mind. But he's a different kind of pitcher. He doesn't rely on max effort the way I do."
Asked where that lost day's rest tends to show up, Leiter pointed at the front of his shoulder. Then he pointed at the back of his shoulder.
"I'd say somewhere between here," he laughed, "and here."
But that isn't the only place. This isn't just about arms. It's about brains. And that missing day leaves as deep a mark on a pitcher's brain as on his arm.
"I think that plays into it, definitely," Leiter said. "We're so conditioned now, over the course of our careers, since the five-man rotation came into the game, that our routine is so regimented. And when you alter that routine a little, it can play on your mind."
Pitchers from this era like Leiter look back at the great pitchers from those bygone eras -- Koufax, Gibson, Johnson, Mathewson, Young -- and they wonder: How were those guys able to do the things they did with such little rest?
"Not to be disrespectful to anyone who came before me," Leiter said. "But I know how my arm responds, how long it takes to bounce back after I pitch. And I can't imagine how those guys back then could possibly have gone out there at 100 percent, with their best stuff. They couldn't have. It's physically impossible. I know that two days after I pitch, my arm is still sore. It's sore to the touch. You need those days of rest."
Maybe Darryl Kile is different. Maybe he's not. But pretty soon, the St. Louis Cardinals will be able to spend all winter trying to figure out which is which.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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