I don't think I could be a major league manager. I was watching the Yankee/Seattle game and the Yankees are comfortably ahead 5-1 in the eigth inning. The Yankees bring in Jose Acevedo who I know they hope will fill the eigth inning role to lead into Rivera (who looked great tonight). The first batter, Brett Boone gets a meatball and hits it out. Of course the little prig flipped his bat. Okay. You threw a strike and he hit it. Acevedo then walks the next two batters. If I had a gun and was Joe Torre, I would have shot him. You know those two walks would score and they did.

I remember hearing some obscene statistic that over 50% of leadoff walks end up scoring. Right from our early days of little league, the coach is yelling, "Just let them hit the ball and let your fielders do the rest." Well, the guys I'm watching are making over a $1 million a year and can't "just let them hit the ball"?

The Red Sox and Royals played tonight and it was a great game for 8.5 innings. The high-flying Royals had their closer in the game and guess what? No, he didn't walk anyone but Royals closer (MacDougal) hit two batters and had a wild pitch. The pitcher that took MacDougal's place after all that hit another batter! When is the last time you saw three HBP in the same inning!? "Just let them hit the ball!"

Why does David Wells win every year and have one of the best winning percentages in the history of MLB and yet have a fairly high career ERA? You could make an argument that he has always played for good teams. But I counter that he keeps himself in the game and keeps his team in the game by throwing strikes. Wells has pitched five games so far this year and has given up ONE walk. One!! Oh, and he's 3-0.

Wells has averaged more than nine hits per nine innings in his career and yet he wins. The reason he wins is that he throws strikes. Tommy John was the same way. He didn't "THROW" a lot of strikes, but he sure never gave up many walks.

Let's take it one step further and compare the careers of Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Here are two remarkably successful pitchers. But Maddux has won far more Cy Young awards and has a career ERA that is a half a run better than Glavine's. To me, the stuff is about even and the only difference is the amount of walks given up by Glavine. Maddux has averaged 1.92 walks per nine innings in his career. Glavine has averaged 3.01 walks per nine innings. That is one more walk a game. And the one walk scored fifty percent of the time!

The most amazing game ever pitched was Roger Clemen's first 20 strikeout game against the Mariners. Roger not only hit the catcher's target nearly every pitch, but he didn't walk a batter. That's remarkable.

I'll make one more argument for pitchers who throw strikes: Pretty much everyone in baseball agrees that Mariano Rivera is one of the best closers in the history of the game. Rivera's first full year was backing up then closer John Wettland. That was the year that Rivera recorded his best strikeout per nine inning ratio. Since he's been a closer, his strikeouts are down per nine innings but so are his walks. "Just let them hit the ball."

I lied because I'll make one more argument: Not only is it important to throw strikes, it's important to throw them early in the count. I watched with interest (and some concern) the inning that Chris Hammond pitched for the Yankees. The batters that he got out all started with strikes and pitcher's counts. The walks and the hits came because he could not get the first three pitches over for strikes.

Walks are a killer and I think all pitcher contracts should have a walk clause stating that every walk was going to cost the pitcher $100.