How about this-

When I played ball, our team never felt dominated by a junk pitcher. If we made contact but were still out, we thought we'd get him the next at bat. We'd just try a new approach each time. But when you got a guy no one is touching because his shit is nasty, then you got dominance.

If you watched both games only one conclusion can be made. Kerry was un hittable. sure someone got ONE hit. Buehrle was hittable but did not give one up.

You can also say Kerry Wood never even came close to giving up a run. Buerhle came within inches of giving up a run.

NUMBERS and STATS dont always tell the truth in baseball. Your eyes do. The only time I was wowed last week was by a defensive play and of course the last out. Kerry Wood wowed me a dozen or so times when the Killer B's would swing and miss over and over again.

YES.

Would you say that a pitcher that gives up a rope that happens to go right to the 3rd basemen for an out, did a better job than a pitcher who gives up a pop-up blooper just off the glove of an infielder?

A guy who clinches a no-hitter (or perfect game) on a smoked line drive got lucky. A guy who loses a no-hitter on a blooper got unlucky. That's just a reality of the game.

The pro-Buehrle camp is giving too much credence to the word "perfect". A true perfect game would be 27 K's.

They're also discounting Wood's game as just a 20 K game. If he had given up 2 runs and 6 hits along with the 20 K's, then yes the 20 Ks are a footnote. But it's the 20 K's PLUS the nature of the other 7 outs and the 1 scratch hit that compose that true nature of that game.

It's just a function of semantics to say Wood wasn't the better pitcher just because he wasn't "perfect". He was a whole lot closer to true perfection than Buerhle was.


* Although, one other factor is that Buehrle had to contend with the nerves of going out there for the 8th and 9th innings with a perfect game on the line. Wood didn't have that dynamic after giving up the HBP and scratch hit.

Please explain to the class how is Kerry Wood allowing 2 baserunners is "a lot closer to perfect" than 27 up and 27 down. Besides, if the goal of the game was to get 27Ks, you wouldn't have 7 other fielders.

Whatever you dolts are smoking, pass some this way.



I will again reiterate that until last Thursday, Kerry Wood (likely) had the most dominating pitching performance in Chicago sports history. But in no way, shape, or form is having 2 guys on base better than retiring all 27 batters in order.

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Buehrle more effective
Wood more dominant

Buehrle gets the nod cuz he was on letterman last night.


Cant believe this argument is still going.
Who cares?

You are completely discounting the luck factor. Say you work hard and graduate from Harvard business school, smartly build your own business, and use your skills to make some fantastic deals, and make $1 million in your first year of business. I buy a lottery ticket and win $2 million. Is my money-making strategy more effective than yours?

Again, did a pitcher who gives up a rope that happens to go right at a fielder succeed, and a pitcher who gives up a cheap hit failed?

I'm sure history is filled with 1-hitters and 2-hitters that were more impressive than a lot of no-hitters.

You ignored my question. I couldn't care less about Harvard or the lottery or luck. Read again and answer please:

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Because if a pitcher gives up 27 screaming line drives that all happen to go right at a fielder, you would consider it "perfect", but I would consider it to be a pitcher that got his ears pinned back but was incredibly lucky.

Frank, obviously...

Once again, you have not answered this question.

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Can you return to the real world where we talk about things that actually can happen?

Watch the game again. There was 1 amazing defensive play that could have been a hit. Every other play in the game was nothing more than routine defensive plays that a AA player could have made.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Any game that a pitcher wins can be considered "perfect." I mean that's the only thing that counts isn't it? You don't get extra credit in the win column for not allowing a hit or partial credit for giving up 7 over 5 innings and still winning. A 27/27 performance isn't any more "perfect" than 20 K's and a hit as long as your team wins both games. The only meatballs in the thread are the ones that claim one performance is unarguably better than the other.

How many different ways can I answer it? Your definition of perfect is looser than mine. There are too many variables involved in a game like Buerhle's to say he pitched perfectly. If no batter ever makes contact with a pitch, that would be perfect. Wood was much closer to achieving that than Buehrle was.

Baseball might call it a "perfect" game, but baseball also calls a runner caught in a run-down "in the pickle", and I've never actually seen a pickle on the field.



I was, but I'm being asked repeatedly to restate the argument. Nobody has answered my question, though. How is it that a pitcher did his job better if he gives up a line drive out than if he gives up a bloop single.



And how much help did Wood need? Less than Buerhle did, because only 8 balls were hit into play, and I think only 2 of them made it to the outfield. Maybe if Wise was playing 3rd base for Wood, he would have saved his ass too, I don't know. I can't pin that on Wood though.

DeWayne Wise, I want YOU

The hit Wood gave up was not ruled an error therefore the scorekeeper felt that Wood was responsible for giving up the hit. His defense could have helped him, but Wood put his defensive player in a position where he was unable to catch the ball. Buerhle put Wise in a position where he could catch the ball. That is fact. It was Wood's fault. You can pin it on him. It's why it was ruled a hit.

We can only go on what we know. Wood put 2 players on the basepaths. Buerhle didn't put any players on the basepaths.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No, its not.



You = wrong.

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I don't really care about this debate, but to say that Wood put his defensive player in a position where he was unable to catch the ball and Buerhle did not is not accurate.

The only hit off Wood was a makeable play, tough but makeable. If Orie had made the play it would not have been considered a defensive gem, however Wise's catch was much more difficult, and Wise made an outstanding catch.

If Wise had not made that catch, no one would have blamed him. However, there were people at the time that criticized Orie for not making the play.

That definition of perfect is no more accurate than the pickle I talked about. It is an overly simplistic definition of baseball perfection that ignores every conceivable nuance of the game. It's semantics. Buehrle was not perfect. He did not intend for the ball that Wise caught to be hit that far. He did not calculate in his head the distance to the centerfield wall and formulate that into the pitch that he threw. Just like Wood cannot control whether a slow grounder ends up in one location vs. 2 feet closer to where the fielder was standing.

Those aren't elements of skill, they are elements of luck.

What the pitcher CAN control is how difficult it is for a batter to hit the ball, and hit it well. That being the case, Wood was better than Buehrle.




Come on, read that sentence to yourself, BR! You can't possibly explain how Buerhle formulated Wise's skill, the wind speed and direction, and the distance to the wall, into the pitch he threw. He got lucky. I would bet $100 if he came on here, he'd admit he got tagged and Wise saved his ass. That argument is more of a stretch than what Wise did to catch the ball.




But we actually know a lot more than that. We know that Wood struck out 20 batters and made most of the hitters in that lineup look like little leaguers. We know he gave up one scratch hit, and that Buehrle allowed many more balls hit into play that, given any different set of random circumstances, would likely have resulted in a typical 3- or 4-hit game.

I am not saying he planned to put the ball there. I am saying the pitch was good enough to keep it in a catchable position. I doubt there is any major league pitcher good enough to force the batter to hit a pitch to a certain spot. It was a bad pitch. However, it wasn't bad enough to be a home run. It is a fact that the Wise catch was a catchable ball because he caught it meaning that the pitcher did a good enough job.


The bold text is false. It is likely that any of the pitches besides the near home run would have resulted in either an error or an out. They were easy outs all game. I take it you didn't watch the game because no one would call that game a defensive masterpiece outside of the one great play.

Believe what you want, but luck had very little to do with this perfect game. There was only one play that I can count on that was "lucky" and that was the Wise catch. The rest of the game was filled with solid pitches and batters who couldn't do anything more than go out on fairly uneventful contact with the ball. You act like every time that there is contact between the bat and a ball that random chance is what determines what happens. That is fundamentally false. Pitchers know how to throw pitches that result in the batter hitting the ball like they want. He got the best of 27 batters in one game without 1 batter getting the best of him. That's why his pitching performance was perfect.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You're right that there were no other defensive gems, but, weren't some of the grounders hit harder than the one Wood gave up for a hit? As you say:



There is some random chance as to what happens. Correct, when hitters make poor contact, they are more likely to make an out. Buehrle did in fact cause hitters to make poor contact all day long. But to reach the end result of 27 consecutive outs also requires that no pop-ups land just beyond the infield, that no "seeing eye" grounders fit between two infielders, etc. Other pitchers have pitched as well as Buehrle did, and walked away with 2-hitters. We agree that the pitcher certainly makes his own luck, but not to the degree that I think you are taking it.

I guess I'm saying that if Wood threw the exact same pitches in 100 hypothetical games, and the same with Buehrle, Wood would end up with more perfect games than Buehrle would in that 100 game stretch.

Good baseball argument.

God you are stupid. I should have left this debate long ago. But again I need to point out how wrong you are. The "pickle" is not a true term- its a nickname, slang. The accurate term is rundown.

Orie's play aside, he hit a batter so he allowed 100% more baseruners than Buerhle did. So if Wood threw the same amount and types of pitches 100 different times, he would have given up at least 100 baserunners, by your own admission.

Buerhle was perfect, and Wood was not. End of discussion.

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randy johnson's perfect game was more dominant than buehrle's. course he wasn't a cub, so sox fans don't care about that.

What about the double down the line that went foul by less than ten feet?

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So now we have a 10 foot window for not being perfect?

I hope you people realize how foolish and moronic you sound.

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What about it? It was a foul ball?

Can I start putting down Kerry Wood's strikeouts that were "almost hit" too?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Whats a more impressive follow up for Buehrle and Wood?

Taking a perfect game into the seventh

or

Striking out 13?


Discuss

Just kidding, Dont discuss.

Obviously Wood's performance was better since he played in the National League where he also had to hit 3 times. No way Buehrle would have had the physical stamina or mental focus to complete the perfect game if he has to step to the plate. I guarantee the one Wise caught would have been a few rows up if Buehrle had played in the real league.

Duh.

Wrigley field is 368 ft. in left center and US Cellular is 375 ft.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

1998 Wrigley Field has a has a higher Park Rating than 2009 Cellular, meaning it's easier to hit there, this would have more than made up for the distance difference.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure it was much easier to for the hitters to hit on a cold, rainy afternoon in April than it was on a sunny, 80 degree day in July

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