Game Score

From BR Bullpen

Game score is a metric created by Bill James to judge a pitcher's effectiveness in a single game. It uses a system of pluses and minuses to create a score. A score of 50 is considered an average outing. Scores of 0 or below or 100 or greater are extremely rare.

Since 1957, the best game score was 116 recorded by Dean Chance in 1964. He threw 14 shutout innings giving up just three hits and striking out 12. The worst was a -21 recovered by Mike Oquist in 1998. Oquist gave up 14 earned runs in five innings.

From 1957 to 2007, there have been 40 games with a 100+ game score. Nolan Ryan had four such games.

The formula for Game Score from the baseball-reference main site is:

Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (or 3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.