Speaking of CC ...

Did you see the clips from his "one-hitter"?* He made one of the best defensive plays I have ever seen a pitcher make. He caught a line drive with his bare hand. Granted, his bare hand is bigger than most people's mitts, but still. And then he threw to first to double off a runner. CC has been absolutely out of his mind since arriving in Milwaukee. He's now 9-0 since the trade, with an ERA of 1.43, in 10 starts as a National Leaguer. That, my friends, is patently ridiculous.

Of course, the story from that game involves the one "hit," which was an infield "single" by Andy LaRoche. It was what some commentators would call a swinging bunt; LaRoche topped the ball, it bounced in front of the plate, and Sabathia himself attempted to field it with his aforementioned bare hand, which apparently doesn't work for him unless the ball's traveling as fast as a car. CC fumbled the ball and could not recover in time to throw out LaRoche. LaRoche was about 30 feet down the line when CC touched the ball, and there is no doubt he could have -- had he fielded it cleanly, using his glove if necessary -- thrown the runner out. But the official scorer in Pittsburgh scored it an error, saying it would have taken an above-average play to throw the runner out.

At this point, I should like to express an opinion about baseball's reverence for its single-game accomplishments. A no-hitter is but one example; you've got your single-game RBI records, your single-game stolen base records, your single-game outfield assist records, etc.

Baseball's single-game feats come in three tiers, with one each for pitching, hitting and fielding: On the first tier, you've got a perfect game for pitchers, four home runs for hitters, and an unassisted triple play for the glovemen. One could make the argument that an unassisted triple play belongs in a different category because it only involves a single play and requires a great deal of luck, but I am including it because it still happens within the confines of a single game, and it takes some luck to pitch a perfect game or hit four home runs as well. These events are about equally likely: There have been 17 perfect games, 15 four-homer games, and 14 unassisted triple plays in major-league history. Of course, the four-homer game is the only one that's possible to top, but it hasn't happened yet.

If you look at the players who have accomplished these top-tier feats, you'll see a wide range of players. To use the perfect game as an example, you'll see some Hall of Famers (Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Catfish Hunter, Cleveland's Addie Joss, and future first-balloter Randy Johnson); a bunch of guys who had strong careers but fell short of that level (Dennis Martinez, David Wells, Mike Witt, etc.); and a few guys who actually finished their careers with losing records (Charlie Robertson, Don Larsen, our own Lenny Barker). So while being a great player surely increases the likelihood of appearing on one of these lists, it's also quite possible to get there as a mediocre player. Hard-hittin' Mark Whiten hit four homers in a game, but if he ever got a single Hall of Fame vote, the writer who voted for him would deserve to be stripped of his vote. And our boy Asdrubal Cabrera turned an unassisted triple play earlier this year, shortly before being sent down to the minors because he wasn't hitting.

In the second tier, you've got no-hitters, hitting for the cycle and the standard triple play, which of course is a team feat. There have been 256 no-hitters, 278 cycles, and 672 triple plays in major-league history. So the defensive feat is considerably more likely, but it's still rare enough to be notable. The names on these lists almost seem random; for example, in the last decade, no-hitters have been credited to such luminaries as Anibal Sanchez, Clay Buchholz, Bud Smith and Jose Jimenez -- and six Astros combined on a no-no of the Yankees.

In the third tier, you've got your odd records like most strikeouts, most hits, etc., and while these are arguably more impressive than those in the second tier, if not the first, they are not held in nearly the same esteem. Ask me, the cycle is a highly overrated accomplishment that has occasionally prompted a player to abstain from taking the extra base, which actually hurts his team. I've watched a few no-hitters myself (I saw Barker's perfecto and Bud Smith's no-no, and I saw Dwight Gooden no-hit the Mariners, all on TV), and it is kind of thrilling. But the bottom line is winning, and it does occasionally happen that a pitcher throws a no-hitter and loses. The reverence for these single-game feats sometimes overshadows the idea that you're supposed to try to win the game, and I find that troubling.

Getting back to CC, the Brewers have appealed to the commissioner's office for the one hit to be changed to an error. I don't know how I feel about this. The official scorer does not affect the outcome of the game, but can have a profound impact on these revered feats, obviously. I feel the official scorer blew this one, but now that the game's in the books, turning it back into a no-hitter would be anticlimactic at best. And if it had been scored an error from the start, would the Pirates' hitters have approached the ninth inning differently, knowing a no-hitter was on the line? I don't know. I was in favor of overturning it last night, but right now, I think I'm against it. Ask me in an hour, and my answer might be different. But the only thing that really matters is that the Brewers won. They're in a pennant race, after all.

* Could be a no-hitter, if the Brewers' appeal is upheld.