A look back at shortstop Mark Belanger, the eight-time Gold Glove Award winner who played the final season of his 18-year career with the Dodgers, in 1982.
Known as “Iron Mike” Marshall, his 90 appearances for the Twins in 1979 remain a franchise record, and his 106 games pitched with the Dodgers in 1974 is by far the most in MLB history.
May 9, 2021
Brandon Woodruff has quietly been one of the better pitchers in the National League since the start of the 2019 season. In 42 starts comprising 237 innings, the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander has 285 strikeouts to go with a 3.11 ERA and a 2.93 FIP. The last of those numbers is equal to Shane Bieber’s mark over the same period.
A big reason for Woodruff’s success is a repertoire adjustment he made midway through the 2018 season. As he explained in an article that ran here at FanGraphs last April, he began throwing both two- and four-seam fastballs. Neither is anything to write home about movement-wise, but paired together and sequenced well they’re a formidable combo. As Woodruff told me at the time, “It’s hard for the hitter to distinguish which one is going to be coming.”
share-square-1900919
Four decades have passed since a 20-year-old screwball-throwing left-hander from Etchohuaquila, Mexico, named Fernando Valenzuela captivated the baseball world when he began the 1981 season by winning his first eight starts for the Dodgers. Forty years later, Valenzuela’s otherworldly performance in that stretch seven complete games, five shutouts, a 0.50 ERA in 72 innings still inspires awe.
Valenzuela’s legacy stems not only from what did on the field, but the lasting impact he had off it. His improbable start captured the imaginations of baseball fans across the country. At some point during those first few weeks of the 1981 season, the excitement he generated acquired a name: Fernandomania. And it manifested in the form of packed stadiums, an outsized media presence wherever the Dodgers went, and the chants and cheers of Latino fans in Los Angeles and beyond, many of whom Valenzuela drew to baseball for the first time.