Well now, what's next?
A return to train travel? The reintroduction of flannel uniforms? Scheduled doubleheaders?
Thought to be as extinct as the dodo bird, the complete game made a rare appearance at Fenway Park Tuesday night. Many who were in attendance will doubtless share this memory with their grandchildren some day.
It had been three years since a Red Sox starter last tossed a complete game, and four years since one had done it at Fenway Park. But bucking history, and just maybe intimidating his manager into allowing him to head back out to the mound for the ninth inning with a pitch count already at 102, Nick Pivetta authored a brilliant effort for a masterful two-hitter in the Red Sox' 5-1 win over the Houston Astros.
The night, ironically, did not begin well for Pivetta. In the first inning, he engaged in a 10-pitch tug-of-war with leadoff pest Jose Altuve, who won the battle when he hit the final pitch of the at-bat into the Monster Seats. Coming as it did the night after the Astros has turned Fenway into a shooting gallery with six home runs, it did not augur well.
"It looked like, 'Uh oh, here we go again,' '' confessed manager Alex Cora after Altuve's blast.
But that was the last bit of noise the Astros would make for a while. Pivetta gathered himself, retired the next three hitters in succession, and then just kept going. Every inning, it was the same: three up and three down, until Pivetta had retired 18 hitters in a row. Leading off the seventh, Michael Brantley yanked a double into the right field corner.
He remained there, however, as Pivetta, as if smelling the finish line, set down the next three and the next three after that in the eighth.
The Sox had had John Schreiber up briefly in the seventh and eighth, but as the Sox batted in the bottom of the eighth, the bullpen didn't stir. Cora had made up his mind to let Pivetta go back out for the ninth, though he may have been bullied into the decision.
"The way he was looking at me,'' Cora recounted, "I was like, 'Let me stay away; he might kill me.' ''
Sure enough, with his pitch count at 102, Pivetta went to where no Red Sox starter this season had gone before -- the mound, for the ninth inning. Three routine outs soon followed and Pivetta had his second complete game effort of his career.
"It was a lot of fun,'' agreed Pivetta, who has been superb since making some mechanical adjustments after his first four starts. "I don't really know what to say, to be honest with you. But I just went out and competed....It was nice.''
A pitch count of 100 -- give or take a few -- is ordinarily enough reason for the manager and pitching coach to rush to the mound and encase their starter in bubble wrap. But Cora took note of the fact that the Astros, powerful as they might be, had not been getting much hard contact against Pivetta in the last few innings and made the call let his pitcher go for it.
"He always jokes with me that I'm not going to allow him to pitch a complete game,'' said Cora of Pivetta. "Today, he kind of willed himself to do that. You see the swings -- they were late. They weren't able to recognize the slider. We had our guys ready, because it happens fast with that team. We've seen it before. But he was amazing. His stuff was really good. There wasn't a lot of hard contact. He was in control.''
Interestingly, Pivetta is of the belief -- with all evidence to the contrary -- that teams are going to reverse course and begin allowing starters to go deeper into games. This, after no American League pitcher reached the 200-inning plateau last year, and openers continue to be utilized by nearly every team at some point over the course of the season.
"I think starting pitching's extremely important, all around,'' said Pivetta. "I think that part of the game will always be here.''
There was also the aesthetics of the complete game effort. As Pivetta emerged from the dugout after the bottom of the eighth to return to the mound, the crowd -- what was left of it -- responded with applause and cheering, which didn't go unnoticed by the pitcher.
Already this season, we've seen Clayton Kershaw lifted after seven innings with a perfect game on the line. We've seen the somewhat muted excitement that greeted the combined no-hitter by the New York Mets last month when it took a total of five pitchers to do the job that one used to tackle.
The fear is that the slavish devotion to pitch counts and analytics has robbed the game of the entertainment factor. Managers operate out of fear, unwilling to challenge the strong suggestions by the front office analysts.
It may be the logical strategy, but it also feels like the fun has been stripped from the game. Fans want to watch great individual performances and they don't appreciate that quest being interrupted because some quant did his research.
So, in possession of a four-run lead, Cora sent Pivetta back out, and got rewarded for his faith.
"I guess that's what we love the game, right?'' marveled Cora at his pitcher's performance. "Unreal.''