It is a quirk, more than anything. Wilson is a very good pitcher, one of just eight this season to work 220 (innings) with 200 strikeouts and an earned run (average) of 3.00 or lower. The others were Roy Halladay, Clayton Kershaw, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, C. C. Sabathia, James Shields and Justin Verlander. He is in very good (company).
And by the middle of next month, probably all those (pitchers) besides Shields and Wilson will have at least one Cy Young Award. Shields has won a World Series game, in 2008. Wilson, in some ways, is still (fighting) to squeeze into the elite. His performance this postseason — 0-3 with a 7.17 E.R.A. in his first four starts — has not helped.
“That’s what the (commercial) says, that legends are born in the postseason or whatever,” Wilson said Sunday, adding later: “It’s sort of one of those things that’s very difficult to process sometimes, as a starting (pitcher), because you feel like everything is on your shoulders, you know what I mean? That’s your job, to go out there and either you get beaten down — literally or (figuratively) — or you stand strong and stand tall.”
That is the mythology of Wilson’s position. The starting pitcher probably has more control over the (outcome) of a game than any other position in team sports. When he completes a World Series game in (dominant) fashion, like Jack Morris in 1991 or Josh Beckett in 2003, he is given a tag that sticks: Big-Game Pitcher. Morris and Beckett have failed in October, too, just like everybody who gets enough (chances). Bob Gibson lost the last game of a World Series; so did Christy Mathewson and Don Larsen and John Smoltz. But the halo effect remains.
