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dsvitak sheepishly admitted:
I have pitched a pitcher on short rest to get his 20th
win....we were NOT in the playoffs!
Don't beat yourself up over it. On Sept. 27, 1997, Lou Piniella brought in Randy Johnson after 4 innings with the Mariners ahead 7-3 for the obvious purpose of getting Randy his 20th win. I was sitting along the left field line in the Kingdome, so I had a good view of him warming up before he went in (the pop when the ball hit the mitt was impressive).
Randy pitched 2 innings in "relief" of Omar Olivares, the M's won, Randy got the W, and Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 50th homer. No one in the crowd, least of all yours truly, had any trouble with what Lou did---even though the M's had already won the AL West and thus didn't need to win this game.
My first M's game, and my first and only in the Kingtomb.
On topic, I think neohemp's tactic for building up Ws is a form of cheating, however benign it may seem---since an OOTP player's ratings apparently are not a direct reflection of his accomplishments, you can't make a starter "better" just by contriving to get him more wins. If you want to lead the league in wins with a starter who pitched 130 innings (or whatever), then fine. I don't play the game to achieve that sort of goal.
Needless to say, in real life this approach to using a pitching staff would implode after about 10 or 15 games (assuming the manager was around that long).
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