Let the Aces Finish
Baseball's Lost Art of the Complete Game
There’s a moment every summer when a ballpark grows quiet. The crowd, restless from hot dogs and scoreless innings, starts to catch on that something’s cooking down there on the mound. Maybe it’s the seventh inning, and there’s sweat on the pitcher’s brow, but the ball still pops the glove, sharper than ever.
The kid’s got a shutout, 12 strikeouts, no walks, and hitters swinging at ghosts. But before the story can write itself, the manager ambles out of the dugout, hand in the air, and snatches the ball. The crowd grumbles. The bullpen door swings open like a trapdoor in a magic act, and nine times out of ten, the rabbit escapes. So much for drama.
This is baseball in 2025, a game run by pitch counts, match-up charts, and algorithms that run colder than the beer vendors’ wares. We don’t measure pitchers in grit anymore. We measure them in 100-pitch increments and “quality starts.” Somewhere along the way, the only thing we stopped letting pitchers do is finish what they started.
Take a game back in May—a real beauty, if you enjoy frustration. MacKenzie Gore, a young lefty for the Nationals, was mowing them down. Seven innings, 12 punchouts, two hits, no walks, scoreboard as clean as a new pair of spikes.
Any old-timer worth his chaw would call that Gore’s game. But out came Davey Martinez, as if the sky had fallen, and yanked Gore like a Sunday fish from the creek. The Nationals bullpen promptly coughed up eight runs in two innings. The shutout vanished. The lead evaporated. The win slipped into the Potomac. No guts, no glory, no common sense.
You can almost hear the ghosts of Bob Gibson and Johnny Vander Meer howling from the bullpen. Bob Gibson once threw 189 pitches in a game and still probably glared at his manager for daring to look at the bullpen phone. Johnny Vander Meer, whose claim to fame is throwing back-to-back no-hitters, once pitched both ends of a doubleheader.
That’s not a typo—he pitched 18 innings in one day, and his arm didn’t wind up in the Smithsonian. Guys like Warren Spahn would ask for the ball on three days’ rest and dare you to take it away. That was pitching. That was baseball.
Now, managers are paid to panic at the first sign of fatigue—real or imagined. Pitchers are wrapped in bubble wrap and told to limit their exposure to fresh air, lest the wind strain an oblique. The 100-pitch limit isn’t a suggestion; it’s the 11th Commandment, handed down from the analytics department.
We have middle relievers, long relievers, short relievers, openers, closers, and—on a good night—a chance to see any of them hold a lead. The starter, who used to be the show, is now the setup act for a parade of “specialists” with ERAs that make you want to drink.
They’ll tell you it’s science. “We’re protecting arms,” they say, as another reliever lobs a 3-1 fastball into the gap. “It’s about longevity.” The logic runs something like this: if you never let a pitcher work hard, he’ll never get hurt. That might sell to the insurance company, but it doesn’t fly in the bleachers, and it sure doesn’t play in the players’ hearts. Pitchers want to finish what they start. Fans want to see greatness, not a relay race.
The old timers weren’t bulletproof, but they sure didn’t flinch. Gibson, Spahn, Koufax, Jenkins, Carlton—these guys got the ball, took the hill, and only left when the job was done or their legs were rubber.
They pitched on three days’ rest, sometimes two, and the idea of leaving a shutout for a bullpen was as foreign as sushi in the dugout. There was pride in finishing the job, in emptying the tank. The scars were badges. They took the blame with the glory. No one counted their pitches—least of all the guy doing the pitching.
Baseball’s new “specialization” is overspecialization by another name. The five-man rotation means pitchers have an extra day to rest, recover, and—if we’re being honest—rehearse their TikTok dances.
In the old days, four-man rotations were the norm, and in a pinch, a guy could go on three. Starters were horses, not greyhounds. They knew how to dig deep in the late innings. They learned how to pitch when the arm was tired, when the legs wobbled, when the heart beat out a Morse code of stubbornness.
Today’s pitcher doesn’t get to find out what he’s made of. He never faces that do-or-die moment in the ninth, never stands on the mound with the tying run at third and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Instead, he’s sent to the showers, towel around his neck, box score unfinished, greatness left waiting. We’re protecting arms, they say. But maybe we’re also stunting hearts.
If MacKenzie Gore, or any young pitcher, is carving up hitters with command and confidence, why cut him short? He’s got five days to bounce back. Do you want to see a kid grow into an ace? Let him finish what he started. Let him sweat through the jams, work out of trouble, trust his stuff and his guts. That’s how pitchers become legends. That’s how you get the games that stick in memory—the 10th, 11th, 12th strikeout, the final batter in a hush so thick you can hear hope breathe.
Baseball was never about playing it safe. The great ones wanted the ball, and they wanted it until their fingers went numb. Pitching is a test of will as much as the arm. It’s the story that unfolds over nine innings, not six and a third. You don’t get remembered for getting yanked after 98 pitches in the seventh. You get remembered for finishing what you start, even if the odds say you shouldn’t.
You want to know why people grumble about the modern game? It’s not nostalgia talking. It’s the sense that we’re settling for less—less courage, less drama, less baseball. We’re teaching pitchers to fear the last few innings, and we’re robbing fans of the best parts of the game.
Baseball, at its core, is about risk. It’s about a man with a ball and a chance to write history. If we’re going to save arms, let’s not lose the heart. Give the kid the ball, let him work, and see what happens. You might lose. You might win. But you’ll get the game you paid to see. And once in a while, you’ll see something you’ll never forget.