Who Knew?

Who knew that starting pitching was important?

Who knew that the length given by starting pitchers is vital to a ballclub’s success?

Who knew that rolling out reliever after reliever is going to eventually catch up with a team?

Who knew?

Not surprisingly, for those who have followed baseball life here at BallNine, the Nerds did not know.

They hijacked the game with a new way, and successful starting pitchers were not invited to their pitch-shape, max-velocity six or seven pitchers a game party.

Look no further than the Mets and the Phillies.

The Phillies are running away with the NL East while the Mets, and all of Steve Cohen’s millions, are trying to hang on for dear life in the watered-down NL wild card race.

Gary Cohen produced the stat of the year – if you are a Mets fan – on Tuesday night, after Ranger (Top Command) Suarez turned the Mets’ bats into Nerf bats, pitching – and I mean pitching – six shutout innings in the Phillies command performance 9-3 win over the Mets at Citizens Bank Park. Ranger, who is not known as a Velocity Monster, struck out 12 Mets and walked one. The lefty allowed only one hit.

Gary Cohen noted the Phillies now had 86 starts where the starting pitcher went six innings. The Mets, on the other hand, have only 40 starts where the starting pitcher has made it to the new mountaintop of six full innings, 18 outs.

Wow, indeed. What in the name of Tom Seaver is going on here?

After Gary’s comment, Ron Darling, a pitching expert noted: “Wow!’’

Wow, indeed. What in the name of Tom Seaver is going on here?

The only team with fewer six-inning starts from their rotation is the Rockies – who can’t pitch at all and have 37 six-inning performances.

Let me point out that Phillies baseball boss Dave Dombrowski is as old school as they get in this era of Nerd Ball. He believes in scouts. He also understands numbers – but most of all he understands you must have tremendous starting pitching to win the NL East.

And all this now with ace Zack Wheeler out for the year.

The Mets, on the other hand, have built a rotation of veteran pitchers who are struggling. The best thing they have going for them is a youngster name Nolan McLean, a legitimate bulldog on the mound.

“I saw him last year when he first signed and he was a two-way player in college, which I love – they are baseball players, he’s a baseball player,’’ one top talent evaluator told BallNine of McLean. “The Mets were letting him do both and I didn’t really like him that much as a hitter. He’s athletic. He looks great in uniform, a lot of swing and miss. Not very good at pitch recognition. I didn’t think he was going to hit, but watching him pitch, I love position players that can convert to pitching because they have a hitter’s mindset. To me, when the chess game starts, they have moves in their minds where they can go because they have been there and done that.

“Plus, they are athletic, they are not ‘throw as f-ing hard as I can,’ and he has a plus curveball.’’

The Mets have to be careful they don’t over-nerd McLean, and by that, I mean, try to push up the velocity at the risk of losing the command. But for now, McLean, 24, gives the Mets hope at least to be a true postseason big-time starter. And like I learned a long time ago from Jim Leyland, “When I call down to the bullpen, I don’t ask how old they are.’’

Leyland, a Hall of Fame manager, managed for Dombrowski and the two won a World Series with the “here today, gone tomorrow” Marlins of 1997.

Here we are 28 years later and Dombrowski is still getting it done and building real pitching rotations, not a bunch of guys who don’t hang around long enough to make a difference.

I’m always rooting for Dave Dombrowski because he has a baseball understanding that few GMs of today possess. And because of that starting rotation that goes into Wednesday night with 86 six-inning starts, the Phillies have 86ed the Mets in the NL East.

Now the goal is simple for the Mets, hang on and get to the “everybody in the water’’ postseason. For the Mets to have any postseason success the pitching must improve and let me put this in a way everyone can understand, the position players have to start playing like they give a darn. The Mets are the most unenthusiastic team in the playoff hunt. Their energy stinks, it is like they know they are going to be there no matter what and can turn it on at any time.

They are playing like entitled – there is that word again – ballplayers that are being paid $340 million from Uncle Stevie.

In July Cohen posted on X taking a dig at his own team’s fans, noting after a win following a rough spurt, “There seems to be less complaining after the team scored 7 runs in the 8th and 9th. Funny how that happens.’’

That basically was an okay for his “team leaders’’ to play at their own pace, don’t overtax yourselves, fellas, and turn it on when you want to turn it on and I’m sure if the Mets have any kind of playoff success – of course, first they have to make it to the watered-down postseason – Cohen will be ready to fire off another “I told you so’’ missive to the team’s fans. Oh yeah.

I’m a little tired of the act. Yes, you spent gobs of money, Stevie, good for you – but how about demanding a little more excellence from your millionaires and a little more what I call GAS: give-a-shit, from your roster.

It’s kind of amazing that both the Mets owner, Cohen, and Yankees owner Hal (I won the Family Lottery) Steinbrenner, both are pretty relaxed about just getting to the playoffs as the goal. Both the Mets and Yankees owners are extremely lucky to have the dedicated fans they have and will put up with the BS.

Yankee fans, especially. The Tuesday Night Travesty the Yankees produced was something out of the Horace Clarke years; relievers Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr. could not get anyone out and a 2-2 game became nine runs in the seventh inning for the Tigers – and a 12-2 Yankees embarrassment.

And, in a way, this ties back to the points I made at the start of this column. Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman’s Nerds just can’t wait to get the starting pitcher out of the game.

One of my big problems with Nerds is that they are always afraid of what might happen, instead of focusing on what exactly is happening on the field.

The other thing I always say is that the most dangerous man in baseball is Aaron Boone with a rested bullpen.

Boone and the Nerds could not wait to yank young starter Will Warren out of the game after six innings and 91 pitches. He had only allowed a two-run home run to Parker Meadows in the fifth – it happens. Warren bounced back with a brilliant sixth inning against the top of the Tigers lineup, getting Colt Keith on a soft ground out, Gleyber Torres on a line out to Aaron Judge, who thankfully did not have to make a throw, and struck out Kerry Carpenter.

That was it for you kid, you are out of the game because the Nerds are worried about what might happen instead of watching what just happened. And that is what Nerds do throughout baseball, not just the Yankees.

Now they get to play fantasy baseball with their army of relievers.

The Nerds are masters at choreographing bullpen destruction many nights during the season and then come up with a lame comment from the frazzled push-button manager: “We had the bullpen all lined up the way we wanted.’’

You also had a young starting pitcher who was doing well.

How are the young starters going to learn to “Go the distance’’ as the Voice commands in Field of Dreams if they are never going to be allowed to “Go the distance’’?

The Yankees are in the same watered-down postseason boat as the Mets. Because baseball is so bad, they probably will get to the postseason and then anything can happen, but they don’t command respect for the way they play the game and that was once again clear on Tuesday night from the broadcast booth.

I will send out my second set of broadcast flowers to Blue Jays broadcaster and former major league catcher and manager Buck Martinez.

During the broadcast Tuesday night, Buck, my old 2006 World Baseball Classic manager friend, told the hard truth with these words in his always folksy manner: “You know,’’ Buck began, “the Yankees, they’re not a good team. I don’t care what their record is. They have a lot of wild pitches, they make a lot of mistakes in the field, they don’t run the bases very well. If they don’t hit home runs, they don’t have a chance to win.’’

That is so true and now the Yankees have some Bulletin Board material to inspire them against the Blue Jays. The Yankees remind me of my post-college softball days in Kenilworth, N.J. I played for gritty Kenilworth Auto Parts and somewhere in this column is a picture of my 1983 MVP Plaque to prove it. We would run up against the big local bar teams like Buffy’s or The Ranch House and if their burly beer-slugging monsters hit home runs, they might beat us, but if they didn’t, we’d easily beat them because we played softball.

In many ways the Yankees are a slugging softball team playing baseball and they can get away with it because this is Rob Manfred 2025 Home Run Derby Baseball, not real baseball.

Who knew?