This October belongs to the starting pitchers

If you’ve been dismayed in recent years about the advent of the “opener” and the focus on pitch counts dictating pitching deployment, this October has been a breath of fresh air.

No, we are never going back to the days of true workhorses such as Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver or Sandy Koufax, or delving even further into the game’s storied past, the likes of Cy Young, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.

Those days, when complete games were the norm for the game’s top starters, are long gone.

In fact, the totals of the active leaders in career complete games — Justin Verlander with 26 and Clayton Kershaw with 25 — were exceeded in a single season in that category by all of the aforementioned Hall of Fame aces except for Seaver, who still managed 21 for the Mets in 1971 and 231 in his career.