This post is aimed squarely at one narrative that has cropped up again and again in June, as Atlanta’s bats went the good kind of haywire and the pitching foundered (and floundered). There seems to be some blithe faith in the idea that a team needs pitching to succeed (whatever succeed means), and that “the pitching” (whatever that means) needs to be good enough for a team to meet its goals.
For some of you, this narrative needs no disproving. You’ve either already read the now-half-decade-old Ben Lindbergh Grantland piece, or you grok the general idea without needing it reaffirmed.