Bob Gibson had a pretty awesome year in 1968. He threw 304.2 innings and allowed only 198 hits, and walked just 62 too. (And struck out 268....)

For pitchers with at least 300 IP in a season, here are the fewest hits allowed. SOme of these seasons are a lot more impressive that others. For example, in 1974, Nolan Ryan allowed only 221 hits in 332.2 IP, but he also allowed a staggering 202 walks to go with his 367 strikeouts.

But anyway, in 1968, Gibson went only 22-9 despite a 0.853 WHIP, just about the lowest number I can imagine for a pitcher throwing so many innings. How in the heck did he lose 9 games?

Check out those 9 losses here. No fewer than 8 IP in all 9 games, and 1 or 2 ER in 6 of them. No more than 3 ER in any of them. Wow.

In honor of last night's marathon , here are the players who had 9 PA in 4 different games in their careers (since 1956).

 Dave Winfield         4 Ind. Games
 Reggie Smith          4 Ind. Games
 Ozzie Smith           4 Ind. Games
 Gene Richards         4 Ind. Games
 Don Mincher           4 Ind. Games
 Willie Mays           4 Ind. Games
 Chuck Knoblauch       4 Ind. Games
 Bert Campaneris       4 Ind. Games                

Winfield, Ozzie and especially Gene Richards benefited by playing on the 1980 Padres (who had 3 games of 17+ innings), but there are other interesting games here as well.

Two quick notes:

None of the players won or lost all 4 games .

Reggie Smith had the  fewest hits in those games, Bert Campaneris the most.

The Royals recently threw 2 consecutive complete games, one by Brian Bannister and one by Zack Greinke.

That makes them the 4th team to accomplish the feat since the beginning of the 2007 season:

 Team    StreakStart  Streak End Games   W   L   CG SHO  SV   IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR   ERA  HBP  WP  BK Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 KCR      2008-04-13  2008-04-14     2    2   0   2   0   0   18      8    2    1    2    7   0   0.50   1   0   0 MIN,SEA
 CHW      2007-09-19  2007-09-20     2    1   1   2   1   0   17     11    3    3    1   10   0   1.59   2   0   0 KCR
 PIT      2007-08-12  2007-08-13     2    2   0   2   1   0   18      8    1    1    1    8   0   0.50   0   0   0 SFG
 LAA      2007-07-30  2007-07-31     2    1   1   2   1   0   17     15    2    2    4   12   0   1.06   0   0   0 SEA

Going back to 1997, there are 4 teams who have had 3 CGs in a row:

 Team    StreakStart  Streak End Games   W   L   CG SHO  SV   IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR   ERA  HBP  WP  BK Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 MIN      2004-07-05  2004-07-07     3    3   0   3   3   0   27     13    0    0    2   24   0   0.00   3   0   0 KCR
 OAK      2000-09-08  2000-09-10     3    2   1   3   2   0   27     12    4    2    0   16   1   0.67   0   0   0 TBD
 MIN      1999-07-30  1999-08-01     3    2   1   3   1   0   26     17    3    3    4   17   1   1.04   0   1   0 ANA
 ATL      1998-06-14  1998-06-17     3    3   0   3   1   0   27     12    3    1    2   22   1   0.33   0   1   0 MON,FLA

And here are the leaders since 1956:

 Team    StreakStart  Streak End Games   W   L   CG SHO  SV   IP     H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR   ERA  HBP  WP  BK Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 DET      1968-09-06  1968-09-19    12   10   2  12   3   0  108     81   20   20   18   98  11   1.67   0   1   0 MIN,CAL,OAK,NYY                              

 OAK      1980-08-09  1980-08-17     9    6   3   9   0   0   86.1   63   20   17   12   43   9   1.77   1   0   0 SEA,MIN                                      

 CHW      1956-09-16  1956-09-23     8    5   3   8   0   0   75     55   22   18   12   34   4   2.16   0   1   1 WSH,NYY,KCA

I would bet that if we could go all the way back to 1901, there were lots of times when teams when 20, 30, or more games in a row with CGs, since there were periods back then when use of relief pitchers was very rare. It's ironic the type of reversal we've seen. Back in the very early 1900s, it was probably a significant pain in the butt for the manager if he had to bring in a relief pitcher.

These days, most teams have a relief pitcher who is accustomed to throwing every 2 days, or 2 out of every 3, etc, and having a few complete games in a row could potentially mess up such players. Of course, that problem is easy to fix--you can always have a relief guy throw a bullpen session to keep his arm fresh.

Well, now that all 3 pitchers (see No Runs to Start the Season) failed in their attempts to start the season with three consecutive runless starts, our attention turns to Justin Germano who tonight will attempt to start his third straight game without allowing an earned run. This would tie him for second with a dozen others who have started the season with three straight earned-runless starts.

The best part of this list is that it affords us the opportunity to look at the leader, and the crazy start he had to his season.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Royals are off to a flying start and I was wondering if we could use PI to figure out where it ranks in their history. Read the rest of this entry »

Here's a fun little list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder - - Since 1956, games where the starting pitcher threw just one pitch and then left the game: 

                   Games Link to Individual Games   

+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Wade Miller           1 Ind. Games
 Dennis Martinez       1 Ind. Games
 Al Leiter             1 Ind. Games
 Don Cardwell          1 Ind. Games
 Chris Bosio           1 Ind. Games
 Pedro Astacio         1 Ind. Games     

 Games found: 6.

As crazy as this may sound, I expected to find more games than this.  Not a ton of games, mind you.  But, I would have guessed that there were at least 20 games like this since 1956.  But, it's just a half-dozen.  Rare, indeed.

I didn't intend for this blog post to be about Frank Thomas making history.  Honest.

I just did a completely random search, and it revealed that Frank Thomas was about the set an all-time MLB career record.

In the next several days, barring a miracle on injury, Thomas will become the man with the most plate appearances without having a single stinking sacrifice hit.

Heading into tonight, he's 8 PA behind Harmon Killebrew.   He isn't in tonight's starting line-up, though.

Please note the SH wasn't kept until 1894, so all the earlier guys you see on that list shouldn't be there.  Here's a better search, looking at 1894-onward only.   It's a bunch of recent guys & Killebrew.  He really sticks out.  Hell, that's an understatement.  Look at how the list looked when he retired in 1975, he had almost as many PA as the rest of the top ten combined.  Clearly, the man could not lay down a bunt.  My favorite guy on that list is Jouett Meekin at #8.  He was a pitcher.  What kind of pitcher can't lay down a bunt? Ever?

That list might understate it.  In 1976, Jeff Burroughs finally laid down a bunt - two actually.  Zisk got one in 1977.

By 1985, Killebrew was still the only one over 3,000 PA and no SH.  Willie Aikens came close, but retired after that year.  George Bell joined him in that category in 1988, over 4,000 in 1989, 5,000 in 1991, and 6,000 in 1992.

By then, Ron Kittle had become the third 3,000 PA, no SH man.  Then came Cecil Fielder.  The Big Hurt was the fifth member.  Now there's 22.

Twenty-three year old Clay Buchholz will pitch in his 6th big league baseball game this evening when he faces the New York Yankees at Fenway Park. 

When was the last time that the Sox sent someone this young and this green to the hill to start a game against the Yankees?  Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder, the answer is easy to find.  I set the filters for "Against NYY, At Fenway Park, as Starter, In first 6 games, (requiring BF>=1 and Age=23)" and found that the last time this happened was May 10, 1965.

On that day, in front of 11,163 fans at Fenway Park, Jim Lonborg went 8 and 2/3rds for Boston and beat the Yankees, 3-2,  in one hour and 57 minutes.  Different times, huh?

Update:  Good catch by Raphy!  By using age = 23, and not 23 or younger, I missed someone.  Rocket Clemens in 1984 was the last time - not 1965.  Mea culpa!

On each of the next three days there will be a pitcher trying to match the longest streak (post 1956) of starts without a run allowed to begin the season. The three pitchers who have not allowed a run in their first two starts of 2008 are Oliver Perez, Kyle Lohse and Ben Sheets. This in itself is unremarkable. There have been 82 pitchers who have accomplished this since 1956. However, if they can do it one more time, then they would join a small group of five pitchers to have done it for 3 starts to start a season . Lohse is scheduled to pitch on Friday, Sheets on Saturday and Perez on Sunday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tampa Bay won today hurling a 3-hit shutout against the Mariners.

Here are all their such games in history:

 Year Games Link to Individual Games
+----+-----+-------------------------+
 1999     4 Ind. Games
 2003     3 Ind. Games
 2000     3 Ind. Games
 1998     3 Ind. Games
 2006     2 Ind. Games
 2004     2 Ind. Games
 2001     1 Ind. Games

These are games allowing 0 runs and 3 or fewer hits. They didn't do it once last year.

By comparison, here are the team totals from last year:

 Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 SDP 2007     7 Ind. Games
 NYM 2007     5 Ind. Games
 TOR 2007     4 Ind. Games
 OAK 2007     4 Ind. Games
 DET 2007     4 Ind. Games
 CHW 2007     4 Ind. Games
 CHC 2007     4 Ind. Games
 BOS 2007     4 Ind. Games
 BAL 2007     4 Ind. Games
 ARI 2007     4 Ind. Games
 STL 2007     3 Ind. Games
 SEA 2007     3 Ind. Games
 WSN 2007     2 Ind. Games
 TEX 2007     2 Ind. Games
 SFG 2007     2 Ind. Games
 NYY 2007     2 Ind. Games
 MIN 2007     2 Ind. Games
 FLA 2007     2 Ind. Games
 CIN 2007     2 Ind. Games
 PIT 2007     1 Ind. Games
 PHI 2007     1 Ind. Games
 LAD 2007     1 Ind. Games
 LAA 2007     1 Ind. Games
 KCR 2007     1 Ind. Games
 COL 2007     1 Ind. Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 CLE 2007     1 Ind. Games
 ATL 2007     1 Ind. Games                

In addition to the Rays, the Brewers and the Astros didn't do it in 2007.

This year, only the Rays, Royals, and Nationals have done it so far.