Look, it was a good one-game performance, and Nolan Ryan was a very good pitcher.
By the same token in that game, Ryan took a 3-1 lead into the 9th inning and then - as he did far too often - he WALKED the leadoff batter, which turned Carl Yastrzemski's home run from a harmless solo shot into a game-tying one. With one out, he then walked the next two hitters before striking out Dick McAuliffe and getting Rick Burleson to ground out.
Bear in mind - while we're praising Ryan - in the exact same game Luis Tiant pitched 14.1 innings and got the win. It's not like Ryan was the ONLY pitcher that day who was awesome (which is kind of the story of his career). Unmentioned is Ryan WALKED TEN BATTERS - that's 40 of his 235 pitches right there. Tiant walked only four. YES, it's a tremendous accomplishment, and Ryan was indeed a beast.
However:
1) Go look at California's pitching staff and tell me who else was going to do better on a 68-win team than Ryan did that day. The moment they pulled him, they lost.
Other than Ryan, the only pitcher on the staff that had a winning record was Bill Singer (7-4). Frank Tanana was a good pitcher over his career (616 starts and a career record of 240-236), and he was 14-19 that year despite a 3.12 ERA. But he was the only other dependable starter, and they had a roundabout four-man rotation.
2) Relief pitching as a specialty didn't REALLY emerge until 1977, when Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young with a 13-5 record and 26 saves on the World Series champion Yankees.
Thing was - pitchers threw a LOT of complete games back then. The Cubs had fewer than anyone else in 1974 with 23. Last year there were only 28 complete games among the 30 MLB teams, and the Phillies led the league with five. Relievers in Ryan's time were thought of as guys who could get a few guys out and not get exposed if you let them face between 3-7 batters but were serious trouble if you let them stay in long. It became a way - and quite lucrative - to keep around a flamethrower like Rob Dibble or Mark Wohlers.
3) Most of the fear nowadays is because of the over-the-cliff failures of pitchers quickly after having a superstar year.
Guys like Brandon Webb or Tim Lincecum or even to a certain extent guys like Pat Hentgen, who had a stellar (even CYA) year and went largely over a cliff to mediocrity or injury soon afterwards.
Nowadays, those pitchers who win CYAs are getting multi-million dollar contracts and in some cases SO ARE THE RELIEVERS. So I "get" it in terms of the front office meddling or fear "this guy might lose his career overnight."
==============================
Having said all that, it's still an incredible game by Ryan. I like to say Ryan was the most UNUSUAL pitcher I ever saw - lotta strikeouts, lotta walks - and very few hits most of the time. But Ryan (to me) is the Tom Osborne of MLB pitchers, he's a guy folks want to rank in the Top Ten who has a couple of eye-grabbing moments, but when you look at the overall picture, his record isn't quite as impressive in detail as it is on first glance.
