A throwback in the AL

On Tuesday night, the Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners got excellent performances from their starting pitchers, each of whom pitched at least six innings and yielded no more than two earned runs.

Yet all of these teams lost because the winners pitched just a little bit better.

For the night, the scores were 4-0, 3-2, 2-1 (in 11 innings), 5-2, 5-3, 2-0 and 5-4, a composite 2.67 ERA. Is this really the American League, where teams for years have largely eschewed subtlety, nuance — and, yes, pitching — in favor of generally trying to outbludgeon the opposition?

Indeed it is, this flashback to 1968, just before the league lowered the mound because the pitching was too good.

Such across-the-board numbers are an aberration. But they are not completely out of whack with what’s going on in the AL, which long has been considered the “hitter’s league” compared with the National League, a notion reinforced by baseballs constantly flying out of the park.

“The one thing that hit me between the eyes was how fast leads could evaporate,” said Buck Showalter, who managed in both leagues.

But now the AL might be evolving into the “pitcher’s league,” and, as Casey Stengel said, you could look it up. Or to quote someone a bit more current, “Without a doubt. The numbers don’t lie,” Baltimore Orioles outfielder Jay Payton said. Heading into yesterday, the AL had a lower combined ERA (4.12) than the NL (4.22) and had produced 41 “team” shutouts to 31 for the NL, even though the AL has two fewer teams.

All this is happening despite the trades of AL aces Johan Santana and Danny Haren to the NL.

“When you look around the American League and see the pitching staffs that have been assembled, and the consistency and the performance, you’ve got to be able to pitch,” Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell said. “We’ve got a very good lineup here, but we’ve gone up against some talented pitching staffs that throw strikes, that do a good job at minimizing the opportunities for the opposition.”

While last year’s Cy Young winner, Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia, has struggled and Boston’s Josh Beckett has been ordinary, the Yankees’ Chien Ming-Wang remains quietly effective. Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka is living up to last year’s hype, and new or unsung names (like Cleveland’s Cliff Lee, Kansas City’s Zack Greinke and Toronto’s Shaun Marcum) are popping up.

Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders have kept the Los Angeles Angels in first place even though their two aces from last year, John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, have yet to pitch because of injuries (Lackey was scheduled to make his first start last night). Haren’s old club, the Oakland Athletics, leads the majors in ERA with a staff of lesser-known names.

“We faced three or four guys I’ve never heard of, throwing 95, 96 [mph], and they were spotting the ball,” Payton said of the A’s.

Said Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro: “You look at those rotations and the pitchers you’ve got to face every night, there are very few nights you feel like you can take a deep breath.”

A cautionary note: Like election night two minutes after the polls close, it’s still early. The season is not quite one-quarter finished. Power-laden lineups like the Yankees’ and Detroit Tigers’ have yet to get on track, and batting averages league-wide might eventually soar like the temperatures as spring morphs into summer. Much can change.

But if the numbers hold up, it would be historic. It has been 36 years since the AL had a lower ERA than the NL. It was 1972, a year including the Watergate break-in. It was the last year before the AL instituted the designated hitter. More than anything, the DH created the leagues’ separate identities.

But even that impact is down. With the slow starts of Boston’s David Ortiz and Cleveland’s Travis Hafner, and other teams using position players to fill a role that demands a specific hitting mind-set, the composite DH average is .244. That’s worse than any other position, and one likely cause of AL pitching success.

“If you broke down both leagues and did head-to-head match-ups and scouting reports of pitching, I think the American League would be better than the National League,” said Red Sox first baseman Sean Casey, who spent most of his career in the NL with Cincinnati. “It goes against the image. Maybe it’s starting to change.”

Actually, the change began a few years ago. Since the DH, the NL always had a huge edge in pitching statistics. Since the early 1990s, with rare exception, the gap between league ERAs hovered between .24 and .78 runs a game. But in each of the last two years, the difference was .07.

One part of the explanation is that in this “post-steroid” era, power and other offense-related numbers in both leagues are shrinking. Home runs declined last year and are down again in 2008.

Most of those involved in the game avoid the subject of performance-enhancing drugs like an errant fastball. But ESPN analyst and former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips said during a radio interview yesterday a combination of increased steroid testing and the Mitchell Report, which named names and caused profound embarrassment, has “scared players straight” and reduced steroid use, causing more teams to adapt the so-called “small ball” approach.

If true, that would apply to both leagues. But in the AL, where this has been a mostly foreign concept, the pitching is dominating the hitting even more. Right behind Oakland is the team with potentially the scariest staff: Cleveland.

The Indians already had Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, each of whom won 19 games last year, plus Jake Westbrook and Paul Byrd. Now there is Lee, who was 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA in 2007, and is 6-0 with a 0.67 ERA so far this year.

Toronto, surprising Tampa Bay, the Chicago White Sox and even the Baltimore Orioles have come up with strong pitching staffs.

“Pitching has been obviously emphasized,” said Orioles executive vice president Mike Flanagan, a former Cy Young winner and pitching coach. “I felt there would be a shift in the game, where teams would depend more on pitching and defense.”

Shapiro said there probably is no single reason for the AL pitching prowess, although he suggests maybe teams have finally understood the risks of signing high-priced free agents and concentrated on developing their own talent.

He also said if the AL is stronger overall than the NL, as many believe, it stands to reason they are finding better pitchers. He said more AL teams might place a higher premium on recognizing starting pitching among players “who are most expensive to replace.”

“There might be a greater understanding across the board, around the league,” he said.