Allowing 10+ runs but 5- earned runs
Posted by Andy on August 30, 2007
Reader denniscookfanclub posed the question of how many times a team has scored at least 10 runs while at least half were unearned. I've done a search for almost this: a pitching game finder where at least 10 runs were allowed, but no more than 5 were earned. (This is actually slightly more restrictive than denniscookfanclub's idea.)
I was shocked to see how many such games there have been. The full list is shared here. There have been a whopping 352 such games since 1957! Here is a sample:
Cnt Date Tm Opp GmReslt IP H **R** ER BB SO HR Pit Str IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk Ptchrs ERA
+----+-------------+---+----+-------+----+--+------+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+------+------+
1 1992-06-30 TOR TEX L 13-16 9 20 16 5 7 9 1 209 121 2 2 53 45 6 1 2 1 0 0 1 2 0 1 3 5.00
2 1989-06-05 NYY BAL L 3-16 9 9 16 3 5 8 3 182 107 3 3 46 41 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3.00
3 1985-07-27(1) HOU NYM L 4-16 8 15 16 0 3 4 1 0 0 45 39 5 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 1 4 0.00
4 1978-09-14 TEX CAL L 1-16 9 18 16 3 2 3 2 10 9 49 45 4 0 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 5 3.00
5 1976-09-12 MIN KCR L 6-16 9 14 16 3 4 8 0 1 1 49 43 5 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 3 3.00
6 1973-05-31 HOU CHC L 8-16 8 14 16 3 5 8 2 5 5 47 41 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 3.38
7 1963-09-03 CHC SFG L 3-16 8 16 16 5 3 3 3 0 0 44 41 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 5.62
8 1962-08-26 NYM LAD L 5-16 9 13 16 4 6 7 2 177 108 2 2 49 41 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 4 0 0 4 4.00
16 runs is the most any team has allowed while allowing 5 or fewer earned runs. Look at that Astros/Mets game in 1985....are you kidding me? 16 runs, none earned? But indeed, the box score backs it up. The 'Stros made 5 errors: 1 by German Rivera, one by recently-fired Astros manager Phil Garner, one by Dickie Thon, and two by first baseman Glenn Davis. Davis was a slightly below-average first baseman in his career, but still it's rare to see two errors by a 1B in the same game. It appears all of the errors were on infield balls, either grounders or bunts.
Sort by team games in each year, we see that 4 teams have pitched 3 such games within a single season:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ TBD 2001 3 Ind. Games NYM 1962 3 Ind. Games CLE 1975 3 Ind. Games CHW 1979 3 Ind. Games
That's just sad.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:45 am
This goes to show the flaws in the definition of an earned run. A batter who reaches on an error is not the pitcher's fault. But the following batters are his responsibility even if the error would have been the 3rd out.