Rich Hill Still Tossing the Pill and That’s What I Appreciates About Him
The oldest player in Major League Baseball this year had quite a game on Monday night. That man is Rich Hill and he’s a left-handed pitcher who has been around the block a few times in his career, starting with his debut season as a 25-year-old with the Chicago Cubs back in 2005. That was two years before the first iPhone came out and a year before Twitter existed. At the time, many more people were friends with Tom on My Space than had even heard of Facebook.
Hill is pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates now, the twelfth team of his big-league career and his sixth team in the last five seasons. Hill is just two teams away from tying Edwin Jackson on the all-time list. He signed a one-year, $8-million contract with Pittsburgh in the offseason, which makes him the second-highest paid player on the notoriously thrifty franchise.
On Monday night, the surprising Pirates (10-7 so far) took on the Colorado Rockies in Colorado’s Coors Field, a notorious hitter’s park. Hill was taking the hill for the fourth time this year. His season started on April Fool’s Day, when he gave up three earned runs in five innings to the Cincinnati Reds. That was followed by an ugly start in which he was knocked around for seven earned runs in four innings by the Chicago White Sox. Then he somehow held the Houston Astros to two earned runs in six innings despite not striking out a single batter.
That set up April 17th’s start in Colorado, which seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. Hill came into the game having struck out just one batter in his two previous starts that totaled 10 innings and 45 batters faced. One thing you simply can’t do in Colorado is allow balls in play. There’s too much space for balls to drop and Hill’s 86.4 mph fastball, which ranks dead last in average velocity among the 164 pitchers with 10 or more innings, didn’t seem like a pitch that could stifle balls in play.
Hill’s a smart cookie, though, so he didn’t rely on the fastball much. Of the 105 pitches he threw, 37 were curveballs, 30 were four-seam fastballs, 21 were sweepers, 13 were cutters, and he cautiously mixed in two change-ups and two sinkers. His fastball never reached 90 mph, topping out at 89.4. His curveball averaged 71.5 mph and his sweeper averaged 69.
Hill went six innings and allowed just a single run while striking out seven. His strikeouts were masterful works of art. Hang these in the Louvre. His first three strikeouts came on pitches clocked at 68, 69, and 68. Just when the Rockies thought they had him figured out, Hill put some hair on it with two strikeouts on 88-mph fastballs that must have looked like 99-mph heaters after the pitches he’d been throwing. He capped off his seven-strikeout day with his last two strikeouts coming on pitches clocked at 70 mph and 68 mph.
A final pitching line of 6 innings, 1 earned run, and 7 strikeouts may not seem all that notable, but for a 43-year-old pitcher it is. In the Integration Era (1947 to present), just ten pitchers before Hill had starts in which they went six innings while allowing no more than one earned run and striking out at least seven batters at the age of 43 or older. Nolan Ryan, the Godfather of Old Pitchers, did it 18 times. Famous knuckleballer Phil Niekro did it 10 times. Randy Johnson and his deadly slider did it nine times. All three are in the Hall of Fame, as are Satchel Paige (1 time) and Warren Spahn (1 time). Roger Clemens isn’t in the Hall of Fame, but has the numbers to be there. He did it five times. The complete list is below:
Nolan Ryan—18 (including 2 no-hitters)
Phil Niekro—10
Randy Johnson—9
Roger Clemens—5
Satchel Paige—1
Warren Spahn—1
Rich Hill—1
The last time a 43-year-old pitcher went six innings while allowing no more than one earned run and striking out seven batters was five years ago, on April 15, 2018, when Bartolo Colon dominated the Houston Astros. The 45-year-old Colon went 7 2/3 innings with one earned run allowed and seven strikeouts. On the other side of the diamond that day was Justin Verlander, who went eight innings and also allowed just a single earned run. Colon’s Texas Rangers ultimately won the game in 10 innings.
On July 2, 2010, Jamie Moyer pitched 6 innings while allowing 1 earned run and striking out 8 batters in a game his Phillies lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Moyer was 47 years old at the time, making him the oldest pitcher in the Integration Era to accomplish this feat.
My favorite of all these games was a Satchel Paige masterpiece. On August 6, 1952, the 46-year-old Paige tossed 12 shutout innings and struck out nine. We don’t know his mix of fastballs, curveballs, or change-ups, but the St. Louis Dispatch described his pitching this way: “He whirled his arm twice in a full windup; sometimes just once. His slow ball . . . seemed to hang in the air, as though manipulated by wire.”
Rich Hill hasn’t whirled his arm twice in a full windup, but his slow balls seem to hang in the air like Paige’s, generating whiffs from frustrated hitters. His next start is back in Pittsburgh on Saturday against the Cincinnati Reds. It would be a thrill to see him add another gem to his collection.
