There were three complete games last night, brining this season's total to ten. Bruce Chen threw a four hitter at the Yankees, allowing just one run and lowering his ERA to 1.80. Aaron Heilman came close to pitching the first no-hitter in Mets history, but settled for a 1-hit shutout of the Marlins. Derek Lowe, wearing a Brooklyn jersey, kept the Padres off stride as he spun a three-hit shutout. So, are complete games up this season? Not yet. (Click graph for a larger image.)

This is a pretty amazing trend. If you look at the linear regression line, we should have hit zero complete games a couple of years ago. Which raises the question; when does a trend become over done? How bad does the save percentage of a bullpen have to be to start trusting your starter longer? You see the Marlins starting to use their pitchers deep into the game (with low pitch counts, I might add). Will others start to follow?