For many years, the leader of Philadelphia's pitching staff had been
Steve Carlton, winner of four Cy Young Awards. But this year, Carlton began
to decline, and had a losing season. Picking up the slack for the Phillies
was right-hander John Denny. Denny began his career with Cardinals; in 1976,
at age 23, Denny won the ERA title. But he was inconsistent after that; he
was not a power pitcher, but had frequent control problems, and that isn't
a good combination.
In 1982, Denny pitched for Cleveland, and was
terrible. He was dealt to Philadelphia, and finished the year 6-13. He was not,
I suspect, a top candidate to win the Cy Young Award. But he did, and deserved
it; John Denny was the NL's best pitcher this year. He also won Game One of
the World Series, the Phillies' only victory against Baltimore. Though he
was only 30, Denny's success was short-lived. He pitched very well in 1984,
but was hurt; he then began to struggle, and his career ended in 1986.
Though Denny was the best this year, a good
case can be made that the NL's most dominant pitcher at this time was Reds'
fireballer Mario Soto. At age 28, Soto had his best season; he had emerged
as everything you could want in a power pitcher. He was very difficult to
hit, had good control, struck out huge numbers of batters, and was durable.
The Reds had a terrible offense this year, which kept Mario from winning 20
games, but there is no question that he was almost as good as Denny. Unfortunately,
the many innings that Soto threw came back to haunt him; he blew his arm out
after the 1985 season, and is career ended shortly after.
Some other starters had fine seasons. Steve Rogers
and Charlie Lea both pitched for Montreal, and both pitched well. Rogers was
a veteran, Lea was a younger hurler who was born in France. Both Rogers
and Lea were a year away from career-ending arm injuries. Atlee Hammaker
is probably best known for serving up a grand slam to Fred Lynn in the All
Star Game this year; but he was an outstanding pitcher for a short time, before
he too blew out his arm.
But ahead of all these starting pitchers,
I'm going to take a reliever, a young pup named Jesse Orosco. Jesse was
26 this year, and had his best season. The Mets were the worst team in the
league, and Orosco had almost 20% of their wins,
in relief. Chip in
17 saves, and a 1.47 ERA, and you've got yourself a pretty good season. At
this writing, Orosco is coming back for another season in 2000; he will be
43 years old. I believe he now holds the record for most career games pitched.
Though Orosco's career is probably not worthy of the Hall Of Fame, he has been
a solid and consistent reliever for many years, and is still going strong.
In the actual Cy Young vote, Denny was the winner,
followed by Soto, Orosco, and Rogers. I'm going to pick the same players in the
same order.
