One thing I love about Orix Buffaloes manager Norifumi Nishimura is his willingness to speak his mind. Of course, as one of Japan’s principle advocates of the sacrifice bunt, that means ascribing all kinds of benefits to the tactic.
Nishimura attributed Orix’s 9-2 loss to the SoftBank Hawks on Sunday to:
His starting pitcher repeatedly throwing pitches that were easy to hit
His No. 2 hitter failing to sacrifice after his leadoff man reached in the 1st inning.
Mind you, his starting pitcher, rookie Daichi Takeyasu had been fairly sharp in his four previous starts. But still, Nishimura is asserting that getting the runner to scoring position with one out could have prevented the ass-whipping that was to follow.
Is it reasonable to assume that a visiting pitcher would do better if he entered the bottom of the first with the one-run lead Nishimura lives to play for?
Here’s a quick study from the available data including recent starting pitchers, and how they performed on the road in those games when they went to the mound in the first inning of games that were either scoreless or 1-0. Included only those in which I have a record of them with a minimum of 50 innings as a starter in games that were 1-0 after the top of the first.
Name
IP 1-0 starts
ERA 1-0 starts
ERA 0-0 starts
Win Pct 0-0 starts
Win Pct 1-0 starts
ERA Diff .
Randy Messenger
66
4.09
3.20
0.500
0.375
0.89
Kenshin Kawakami
54 1/3
4.14
3.70
0.560
0.750
0.44
Takayuki Kishi
107 1/3
2.93
2.54
0.583
0.615
0.39
Kazuhisa Ishii
93 2/3
4.04
3.66
0.367
0.444
0.38
Hideaki Wakui
142 1/3
4.05
3.77
0.495
0.474
0.28
Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi
89 1/3
4.84
4.57
0.404
0.333
0.27
Atsushi Nomi
150
4.14
3.87
0.478
0.450
0.27
Tetsuya Utsumi
151 1/3
3.51
3.54
0.442
0.450
-0.03
Kan Otake
124 2/3
3.54
3.61
0.386
0.625
-0.07
Koji Uehara
122 2/3
3.08
3.19
0.516
0.600
-0.11
Masanori Ishikawa
152 2/3
3.48
3.68
0.388
0.619
-0.20
Shunsuke Watanabe
99 2/3
3.79
4.04
0.426
0.500
-0.25
Kenichi Nakata
104 2/3
3.61
4.03
0.373
0.692
-0.42
Yoshihisa Naruse
118 1/3
3.42
3.91
0.375
0.571
-0.49
Toshiya Sugiuchi
196 2/3
2.61
3.20
0.494
0.684
-0.59
Kenta Maeda
145
2.11
2.71
0.446
0.688
-0.60
Hisashi Iwakuma
74
2.43
3.07
0.592
0.625
-0.64
Fumiya Nishiguchi
105
3.60
4.30
0.426
0.769
-0.70
Daisuke Miura
184
2.84
3.54
0.341
0.647
-0.70
Masahiro Yamamoto
124
3.82
4.67
0.407
0.667
-0.85
Hiroki Kuroda
120
2.33
3.33
0.476
0.786
-1.00
Yasutomo Kubo
95
2.56
4.13
0.451
0.857
-1.57
Tsuyoshi Wada
188 1/3
1.96
3.68
0.514
0.941
-1.72
Naoyuki Shimizu
86 2/3
3.22
5.11
0.403
0.818
-1.89
Pitchers performances in starts as visitors in games started with 1-0 lead or 0-0 lead.
It seems from this data that it might be a good idea to get your pitcher a 1-0 lead in the first inning if you can. Having said that, I think I can see why Randy Messenger‘s teammates have infamously scored so few runs for him: He has done better when they don’t.
So Nishimura’s assertion that one run could have changed everything is probably not as ridiculous as it first sounds. And if your starting pitcher was Tsuyoshi Wada — at least back in the day before he had Tommy John surgery, why the heck wouldn’t you sacrifice in the top of the first if you had a chance?
