Having missed their first chance to wrap up the World Series, the Florida Marlins will now apparently have to beat the pitcher who has been a human victory cigar.
Cleveland Indians manager Mike Hargrove announced after Saturday night’s game that 21-year-old Jaret Wright would start Game 7 against Florida on Sunday night.
“I might toss and turn, and I might sleep until the afternoon,” said Wright, just three years removed from high school. “I feel like I belong. If I could belong one more day, then we’ll be OK.”
Hargrove had earlier said that Charles Nagy would start Game 7, but Nagy warmed up twice in the bullpen during Saturday night’s 4-1 Cleveland victory.
Wright, who beat Tony Saunders in Game 4, is 3-0 with a 5.75 earned-run average in four postseason starts. The Indians not only won all four of the games he started, including the final game of the best-of-five division series against the New York Yankees, they have won his last eight starts. They are 15-4 in Wright’s starts this season.
Florida has little choice except to start left-hander Al Leiter, who gave up seven runs in 4 2/3 innings of Game 3. He is 0-1 with a 6.35 ERA in four postseason appearances, including three starts.
Hargrove said before Game 6 that he might use Nagy or left-hander Brian Anderson if he needed a long reliever. But a strong effort by Chad Ogea allowed him to keep both pitchers fresh for the seventh game.
Anderson is 1-0 with a 1.86 ERA in five postseason appearances. He has allowed three hits in 9 2/3 innings.
“Brian Anderson has pitched very well for us out of the bullpen,” Hargrove said. “We view, and always have viewed, Brian as a starter. Anytime you see a kid come in and do well, especially in a pressure situation such as the World Series, it raises your confidence level in that individual.”
Nagy, a 15-game winner during the regular season, has fallen out of favor with the Indians by failing to win any of his four postseason starts. He is 0-1 with a 5.16 ERA, largely because he has walked 15 in 22 2/3 innings.
Move it along: Acting Commissioner Bud Selig vowed a crackdown on delaying tactics next season, insisting that 20 to 25 minutes could be trimmed from the average game.
“We need to quit talking about it. We need to do something,” Selig said Saturday night before Game 6.
Selig has criticized hitters for stepping out of the batter’s box and pitchers for circling the mound between pitches. The first five Series games–none of which went extra innings–took 3 hours 19 minutes, 2:48, 4:12, 3:15 and 3:39, and their average of 3:25 is on track to break the record of 3:20 set the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets in 1986.
In June 1995, former AL umpire Steve Palermo presented owners with recommendations to speed up games, but their effect has been slight to none.
“There will be a change next year,” Selig said. “This is one of those rare situations in life where everybody benefits.”
The average time of a nine-inning game was 3:01 in the American League this season, up from 2:52 in 1991. In the NL, it was 2:52 this year, up from 2:46 in 1991. In the late ’70s, the average game time was under 2:30.
Selig said he did not believe the umpires or players would object to changes. However, the players association in the past has said any change must be gradual.
Just in case: Because the Bears-Miami Dolphins game will be played Monday night at Pro Player Stadium, the World Series would conclude Tuesday night if Game 7 is rained out on Sunday.
That appears unlikely. There was no rain at the stadium Saturday, and the Sunday forecast calls for only a 20 percent chance of rain. The high is expected to be 87.
Hitting shoes: With a two-run single in the second inning, Ogea became the first pitcher in almost a decade to drive in more than one run in a World Series game. It hadn’t been done since Oakland’s Mike Moore drove in two runs in Game 4 of the 1989 Series.
Ogea also had a double in the fifth inning. That made him the first pitcher to have two hits in a Series game since Toronto’s David Cone in Game 2 in 1992, and the first pitcher with a double since Toronto’s Leiter in Game 4 in ’94.
Interested in Sox: Indians first base coach Dave Nelson hopes to get a phone call from White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler this week. He believes he could do a good job as the successor to Terry Bevington, who was fired as Sox manager on Sept. 30.
“I would love the chance to interview for that job,” Nelson said Saturday. “I think I could do a good job in that situation. But I don’t know that they’re thinking about me.”
Nelson, a former Cubs radio broadcaster, is well connected to two of the most powerful people in the White Sox organization. He served alongside Schueler on Tony La Russa’s coaching staff in the early 1980s. And he is one of Albert Belle’s closest friends in baseball.
Nelson switched his uniform number when Belle left the Indians after the 1996 season. He wears No. 8 as a tribute to Belle.
