A relief pitcher or reliever is a baseball or softball pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed due to injury, ineffectiveness, ejection from the game, or fatigue. Relievers are further divided informally into closers, set-up pitchers, middle relief pitchers, left-handed specialists, long relievers, and mopup men.
The importance of relief pitchers has increased significantly since the 1960s. This change in mindsets can be...
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A relief pitcher or reliever is a baseball or softball pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed due to injury, ineffectiveness, ejection from the game, or fatigue. Relievers are further divided informally into closers, set-up pitchers, middle relief pitchers, left-handed specialists, long relievers, and mopup men.
The importance of relief pitchers has increased significantly since the 1960s. This change in mindsets can be seen by watching any major game, as well as by monitoring the salaries of such pitchers. In decades past, the relief pitcher was merely an ex-starter who came into a game upon the injury, ineffectiveness, or fatigue of the starting pitcher. The bullpen was for old starters who had lost the ability to throw effectively. Many of these pitchers would be able to flourish in this diminished role. Those such as Dennis Eckersley, as with many others, actually prolonged their diminishing careers and often sparked them to new life. The added rest to...
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