I couldn't let Aaron Cook's performance yesterday go unheralded.  He went the distance. In Colorado. Holding the Padres (who hit .270/.340/.420 in June ... good for an NL team) to five (5) hits and zero (0) runs. It was his first complete game shutout of his career. But that's not the strange thing. Cook did this in just 79 pitches.  Going back to 1988, only 4 other shutouts have had 79 or fewer pitches, and only Jon Lieber's 1-hitter in 2001 beat it (78 pitches).

[ed - No full-length "article" this week from me... figured the last one would take 2 weeks to digest, anyway (link).] 

Cook has long been one of the most efficient pitchers in the majors.  He can throw hard.  His fastball was once rated one of the 10 best in the minors.  He's thrown 67 pitches over 92 MPH this year (according to Pitch F/X, and that doesn't include those at exactly 92 MPH).  Yet, he doesn't throw that hard very often, and his bread-and-butter is the sinker, making him one of the best pitchers in the majors at inducing ground balls (over 55% every year of his career). 

In an old Abstract, Bill James noted how rare it was for pitchers to succeed long-term in the majors without striking out batters.  Personally, I think this has been taken too much to extremes, at every level of the game, but - statistically - it's been exceedingly difficult to make a living as an MLB starting pitcher striking out less than 5 batters per 9 innings.  Cook has 333 K's.  In 843.2 IP.  That barely breaks 3.5 K/9. 

Wang's gotten more attention for his work with low K-rates, but Cook is starting to turn heads this year, with his 11-5 record for a team going nowhere.  If you look at the ERA+ from baseball-reference.com, Cook's career total is 112, compared to Wang's 115.  But Cook came up 2 years younger than Wang did.  If you look at their age-25 and after ERA+ ratings, Cook has actually scored better than Wang.  And that's without giving him any "extra credit" for dealing with a life-threatening blood clot.

Some of that is due to defensive help, which the Rockies value and the Yankees view as an afterthought to scoring bushels of runs.  Nowhere could that have been more clear than in yesterday's game, where Cook's "pitch to contact" style led to two GDPs, and the obscenely low pitch total. 

So, congratulations to Aaron Cook on his first career shutout.  And on beating the odds, year after year.  May he have many more great seasons!