With The DH On Hold, National League Pitchers Can Help Themselves

Now that National League pitchers have to bat again, wouldn’t it be ironic if one of them delivers a hit that decides a division title or playoff game?

The designated hitter, used by the American League since its imposition as an experiment in 1973, came to the NL last year as one of many experiments during the virus-shortened 60-game season. But it’s gone this year because owners and players could not agree to keep it – even though the universal DH is virtually certain to return in 2022 as part of a new, yet-to-be-negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Without the DH in place, fans will get one more chance to see Madison Bumgarner, Michael Lorenzen, and Zack Greinke (in interleague games hosted by NL clubs) swing a bat. And that’s not such a bad thing.

Since the advent of the designated hitter in 1973, National League pitchers have hit .300 in 19 different seasons, with Orel Hershiser owning the best performance (.356 in 1993) and Rick Rhoden reaching the plateau twice.

The most recent pitcher to hit .300 was the otherwise-forgettable Micah Owings, who clocked in at .339 for the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks.

Baseball history is filled with the exploits of pitchers who could hit:

• Bumgarner, for example, is the only pitcher in baseball history to hit two home runs on Opening Day

• Rick Wise is remembered today as the only pitcher to homer twice while pitching a no-hitter

• Tony Cloninger would also be forgotten if he had not been the only pitcher – and the first National League player – to hit two grand-slams in one game.

• And how about Terry Forster, whom David Letterman once called “a fat tub of goo” on national television? A solid left-handed relief pitcher, Forster had a .397 career batting average – the best for anyone who appeared in at least 500 big-league games.

Pitchers who could hit have a built-in advantage against their opponents.

Visionary Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley, recognizing that fact, once gave Catfish Hunter a $5,000 bonus for his hitting after the right-hander capped a 21-win season with a .350 batting average and 12 runs batted in.

Among active National League pitchers, Bumgarner and Lorenzen have had the most success.

Bumgarner, starting his second season with Arizona, has hit 19 home runs in 12 seasons. But nine of them occurred in 2014-15, when he was the top starter for the San Francisco Giants. During the team’s world championship season of 2014, the lefty hit .258 with four home runs and 15 runs batted in.

Just one year earlier, Zack Greinke batted .328 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now with the Houston Astros, he has an average of .225 lifetime – not too shabby for a pitcher – and nine home runs. But he doesn’t hit in the American League, the home of the DH, except for games in NL parks.

He talked about that with reporters Monday. “The only milestone I pay attention to is I wanted to get 10 home runs and 10 stolen bases, and then I got traded to the American League and made it way harder for that to happen,” the 37-year-old pitcher said in a Zoom call. He needs one more of each.

Lorenzen, like Greinke, is a victim of his own success. Because he’s a workhorse reliever who has made at least 70 appearances twice in his six-year career, the 29-year-old Cincinnati right-hander has suffered a reduction in his previous triple role as pitcher, pinch-hitter, and outfielder. A .235 lifetime hitter, his best year was 2018, when he batted .290 with four homers in just 31 at-bats.

Should the DH return to the Senior Circuit, Lorenzen still wouldn’t be able to deploy his lethal bat from his berth in the bullpen. If he becomes a starter, however, that would change.

The success of Shohei Ohtani shows that baseball can accommodate a player skilled enough to both pitch and hit. A left-handed hitter and right-handed pitcher, Ohtani jumped from the Japanese major leagues to the Los Angeles Angels in 2018 and immediately became the American League Rookie of the Year.

That first year, he hit .285 with 22 homers and 21 doubles in 114 games, mainly as a DH, and posted a 4-2 pitching record and 3.31 ERA in 10 starts (51 2/3 innings). That made him the first major-leaguer since Babe Ruth in 1919 to hit 15 home runs and pitch 50 innings in the same season.

Though he did not pitch in 2019 while recuperating from Tommy John elbow surgery, Ohtani made two starts during the virus-shortened 2020 season and is expected to resume his dual role as pitcher-DH this season. Like Lorenzen, he is also capable of playing the outfield.

While skeptics contend that pitchers are automatic outs, baseball history begs to differ.

Ruth rang up a 94-46 pitching record and 2.28 earned run average – leading the American League with a 1.75 mark for the 1916 Boston Red Sox – before he started spending off-days in the outfield two years later. By the time he reached the Yankees in 1920, he was a full-time position player.

Connie Mack could have considered something similar for one of his ace starters on the Philadelphia Athletics. On May 8, 1906, Mack needed an outfield sub in the sixth inning of a game against the Red Sox (then called Pilgrims) and decided Chief Bender, not pitching that day, could fill the bill.

He did: as a hitter. Bender smacked a pair of inside-the-park home runs to win the game.

Another future Hall of Famer, Walter Johnson, carved his niche as a hitter in 1925, finishing with a .433 average (42-for-97) that was the best single-season mark ever recorded by a pitcher. In 97 at-bats that year, he also posted a 1.033 OPS.

Johnson had 24 lifetime homers but Wes Ferrell topped him with 38, the most ever hit by a full-time pitcher. Both he and Warren Spahn, who hit 35 to lead the National League, were often used as pinch-hitters. Spahn added a footnote, hitting home runs for the Braves in 17 consecutive seasons – a feat matched only by Hank Aaron and Chipper Jones.

Spahn’s long-time sidekick, Lew Burdette, hit just .183 in his career – except against Sandy Koufax! For some unknown reason, Burdette beat up on Koufax to the tune of .308, collecting two home runs and three runs batted in during 13 at-bats against the legendary lefty. That was better than sluggers Willie McCovey and Dick Allen did in 77 at-bats against Koufax; they combined to bat .181 with two homers and three RBI.

Koufax himself couldn’t hit but fellow Dodger pitchers Don Newcombe and Don Drysdale definitely did. Newcombe hit .271 with 15 homers in 10 years but hit seven of them in 1955, when his .359 average in 117 at-bats helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win their only world championship. Ten years later, Drysdale hit an even .300. He also had a pair of seven-homer seasons.

So did American Leaguer Earl Wilson, who owned an all-or-nothing swing that produced a .195 average but 35 homers in 11 seasons.

Mike Hampton was no slouch at the plate either. Thanks to four .300 campaigns, he compiled a .246 career average that included 16 home runs (seven with the 2001 Rockies). A year later, the thin air of Denver helped him to finish with a .344 average and three home runs.

Even playing in Colorado didn’t let Hampton add a three-homer game to his resume. In fact, the only pitcher ever to do that was Jim Tobin of the Boston Braves on May 13, 1942. He hit three other homers that year too but was only a .230 hitter lifetime.

The Braves had moved twice by the time Cloninger made history with his bat on July 3, 1966. He not only hit two grand-slams in the team’s 17-3 win over the San Francisco Giants but added a run-scoring single, giving him nine runs batted in for the day. He also had another two-homer game that season.

A later Braves starter, Tom Glavine, didn’t produce much power but perfected the art of the sacrifice, finishing his career with 216. He even led the National League in that department in 2001, the year he won his first Cy Young Award.

Now that the DH has been taken away, pitchers who can bunt could prove as valuable as pitchers who can hit. They will certainly prolong their chances of staying in close games. Without the DH, look for more bunts, squeeze plays, double-switches, and pinch-hitters – all big parts of the game when pitchers hit.

There’s always a chance some pitcher somewhere will do something unexpected. The best case in point occurred on May 7, 2016, when portly pitcher Bartolo Colon – who always swung hard just in case he made contact – connected for a home run in San Diego’s Petco Park. That made the 42-year-old right-hander the oldest player to hit his first career home run.

Normally, Colon couldn’t hit a lick. But he lasted well into his 40s because he could pitch. At the opposite extreme was Micah Owings, who went 32-33 in six seasons with a 4.86 ERA. But he hit .333 with four homers in 60 at-bats as a rookie with Arizona in 2007 and made the record books by posting an .813 career OPS – best ever for a pitcher.

Who knew?