Blast From the Past: Great Starting Rotations

I remember as a kid being envious of the Dodgers' pitching rotation. Of course the Dodgers had Sandy Koufax, who was generally acknowledged to be the best pitcher in baseball, and Don Drysdale, also very good, but a guy the Giants always seemed to do pretty well against. The Giants countered with Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, two guys I thought matched up pretty well against Koufax and Drysdale. So why was I envious of the Dodgers' rotation? Claude Osteen! The Giants had no answer for Claude Osteen! I've never heard anyone mention Claude Osteen in the same context as Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal and Perry, but Osteen was the hammer who the Giants had no counter for. In the 1965 World Series between the Dodgers and Minnesota Twins, the Twins shockingly beat both Drysdale and Koufax in the first two games in Minnesota. Guess who stopped the bleeding and started a 3 game winning streak for the Dodgers once the series got back to LA. That's right Claude Osteen. I think he pitched a 4-0 shutout, or something like that. He was also often the difference in the Dodgers winning 2 out of 3 in Giants-Dodgers series during the regular season.

As I was watching the postgame show on TBS after the Giants won game 4 and the NLDS series, there was a segment on the Phillies' top 3 starters and comparing them to other great top 3's. They didn't mention Koufax, Drysdale and Claude Osteen, but they did mention the Orioles of the late 60's and early 70's, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally and Jim Palmer. Of course, they also brought up Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz of the Braves. Perhaps the greatest 4 man rotation in history belonged to the Baltimore Orioles for a couple of seasons when Pat Dobson won 20 games along with Cuellar, McNally and Palmer. One of my earliest baseball memories is of a precursor to the Orioles great rotation, McNally, Steve Barber and a very young Jim Palmer allowing just 2 runs to the Dodgers while sweeping them in 4 games in the 1966 World Series. One 3 man rotatation that I haven't seen mentioned but deserves to be in the discussion was the Oakland A's of the early 70's: Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Ken Holtzman. They had John "Blue Moon" Odom to make it a 4 man in 1972. The 1989 Oakland A's had a pretty darn good 4 man in Dave Stewart, Mike Moore, Bob Welch and Storm Davis, but that team was much better known for their hitting.

There have been several great 1-2 pitching combinations over the years: Spahn/Sain, Marichal/Perry, Seaver/Koosman, RJ/Curt Schilling and more but there haven't been a lot of great 3 man combos and even fewer 4 man rotations, which brings us to the 2010 Phillies. The Phillies have assembled a top 3 triad, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels that is, indeed quite impressive. In fact, I would say it stacks up quite favorably with the very few great 3 man combos assembled in the history of baseball. It features a perennial Cy Young candidate who, at age 33 has won 169 MLB games and appears to be still on the upward trajectory of his career. With the longevity of MLB pitchers that has become almost routine these days, 300 wins and a HOF induction loom as a real possibility for Roy Halladay. The fact that he is coming off a regular season perfect game and only the second no-hitter in post-season history only adds to the awe with which he is being regarded. Roy Oswalt is a perennial top pitcher and Cole Hamels is a young LHP pitching phenom who appears to be finally coming into his own as a star. All of these pitchers have post-season experience except Roy Halladay and he apparently doesn't need any!

So, how do the Giants stand a chance in the face of an obviously superior lineup and this incredible triad of pitching talent? The answer is that the Giants have assembled a few pretty good pitchers of their own. I mean, while everybody is oohing and ahhing over Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum brings some pretty incredible credentials to the table himself like 2 Cy Young awards in his first two full seasons. THAT has never been done before! 3 time league strikeout leader in 3 consecutive seaons, only accomplished twice before since WWII by Warren Spahn and Randy Johnson. You think Roy Halladay's no-no was impressive? By some measurements, Timmy's complete game 2-hit shutout of the Braves with 14 K's was even more dominant! Then there's Matt Cain who is not as brilliant as Timmy, but matches up with a Roy Oswalt very favorably. Cainer turned in the terrific second half of this season marred only by a late season shelling by the Padres in game 160. Jonathan Sanchez, much like Cole Hamels is just coming into his own. His K/9 has always been in elite territory, but now he is starting to harness that awesome talent by keeping his emotions in check and trusting his stuff enough to go after hitters rather than nibble his way to an early exit due to walks and pitch counts.

What the Giants have, that the Phillies don't, is a 4'th starter that deserves to be in the discussion here. As Jim Palmer proved in 1966, you don't have to be a veteran pitcher to take on the best. More often than not, pitching aces got to that lofty designation with dominating performances at a young age. Madison Bumgarner, a young pitching phenom, whose apparent lack of conditioning in the spring drew questions from none other than the GM who drafted him, Brian Sabean. Like a true champion, Bumgarner rose to the challenge and has become somthing of a workout fiend, observed yesterday by Andy Baggerly to be running the stands with Matt Cain. The result is MadBum getting progressively stronger as the season has gone along. In Game 4, in which he won the NLDS clinching game against the Braves, his fastball was clocked at 95 MPH in the first inning and sat at 93-94 the whole game. That's a far cry from the 88 with which he arrived in the major league amid widespread disappointment late last season. What he now has, that he didn't have when he was putting up record setting numbers in the minor leagues, is an arsenal of secondary pitches to go with the heat.

I believe that the Giants, over the next 2-3 seasons are entering a period where they will have one of the greatest, if not THE greatest top 4 in their starting rotation of all time. What I'm hoping for, is that we have already entered that era and just don't know it yet, much like the 1966 Baltimore Orioles with a young pitcher named Jim Palmer.

How do you think the Giants pitchers compare to the 2010 Phillies and in baseball history?