Its not that amazing considering how the White Sox have a new history of stinking up september...
I suspect that with the crackdown on steriod use, the future of baseball may be less offensive. No pun intended. That's if you assume hitters were the only ones taking steroids, and that offence increases only because of steroids, and not changes in training, bat design, offensive strategies, ballparks, ballpark locations and drafting.
Curtain Call: MLB followed up their big day of no offense with a day that saw two complete game shutouts, one a no-hitter and another delivered by Oliver Perez (of all people). In addition, the Rockies and Padres played runless ball for 10.5 innings before a September call-up, Paul McAnulty, homered to end it in 11. That game also saw a rookie -- Cla Meredith -- break the Padres' club record for consecutive scoreless innings with 29. Not to take anything away from the pitchers -- especially Sanchez's gem -- but September brings rosters dotted with more AAA quality players than the rest of the season. As managers try these guys out, especially on teams that are phoning it, it stands to reason that overall offense will show a decline. Seven shutouts in one day is pretty amazing -- especially when the victims include the White Sox and Yankees -- but over half the teams in the league are out of pennant races right now, including the Mets and Yankees who have cruise control leads. A pitcher only has to run a shutout about 4 or 5 innings before he starts to see the regulars on the other side disappearing. And rookie pitchers have an easier time when they first come up than rookie hitters, by and large. This run drought would be more surprising in June or July.
