It occurred to me that I've somehow omitted any discussion of Blyleven's pennant race performances.

Bert participated in seven tight division races - '70, '77-80, '87 and '89 (again, I've defined a tight division race as one in which the race was within five games at some point in September prior to elimination or clinching, and the pitcher made at least one September start when the race was within five games). Bert's teams won two world championships, three division titles and had an average winning percentage of .562 (equivalent to 91 wins in a 162 game season). In other words, these were good teams, and yet Bert's September records in these races were as strikingly mediocre as the rest of his regular season performances for these teams. Bert made 40 starts in these seven races and had a 13-14 record and 3.04 ERA in 278 innings pitched.

It's the same ol' Bert story: decent ERA but a relatively low win total and winning percentage despite pitching for good teams. Bert didn't win as many as three games in any September until his last one in '89. The fact is that Bert played in seven tight divisional races and didn't have a significant impact on any of them. Three times Bert made six or more starts in September and won only two games. Twice he made five or more starts and won only one game. Even Jack Morris, for all his September troubles, had two Septembers in which he won four games.

The Bert Backers would no doubt remind us that Bert had an excellent post-season record. He absolutely did, but as is the case for many other pitchers, the post-season sample size for Bert is rather small - six decisions and 47.1 IP. In any event, Bert's October record can't obscure the fact that he was perfectly mediocre across 40 starts in seven years in which his teams played very important games in September.

I haven't checked Jim Kaat's pennant race records, but I happened to stumble across an account of Kaat's amazing performance in the great '67 AL pennant race in which he was 7-0 with a 1.51 ERA.

It seems as if every pitching candidate for the Hall of Fame managed to have at least one September where he made his presence felt in a pennant race. Every candidate other than Bert Blyleven, that is.