If you didn't catch Sunday's Astros-Padres game, you missed history being made.  Astros starter Jason Jennings allowed 11 runs (all earned) and got only 2 outs.

Using PI, we can find the pitchers who allowed the most runs in a game while not getting even three outs. We see that Jennings joins Luke Hudson as the only guys to allow even 10 runs (let alone 11) while not pitching an inning.

You might recall that Hudson's 2006 start made news, as he was the first pitcher since Hall of Famer Kid Nichols to allow 11 runs in the first inning of a game. But neither Hudson nor Nichols can match Jenning's 11 earned runs allowed in the first inning. Based on my research, Jennings is the first pitcher to allow 11 earned runs to start a game since Tony Mullaneallowed SIXTEEN earned runs in the first inning on June 18, 1894, against Boston. Sorry, baseball-reference.com doesn't have that box score online quite yet.

And oh yeah, lost in all the hubbub of Jennings doing something that hasn't happened in 113 seasons, we almost missed the fact that Jeremy Bonderman also gave up 11 runs on Sunday night. Thanks to PI, we can find the other dates since 1957 where two different pitchers each allowed 11 runs or more; just search for pitchers who allowed 11+ runs, then sort by date:

This means that Sunday was just the third day since 1957 where two pitchers each allowed 11+ runs; the others were:

4/29/1999: Mel Rojas (DET, 11 runs) and Roy Halladay (TOR, 11 runs)
8/24/2002: Jose Lima (DET, 11 runs) and Jose Cabrera (MIL, 11 runs)
7/29/2007: Jeremy Bonderman (DET, 11 runs) and Jason Jennings (HOU, 11 runs)

Notice a trend there? Maybe Tigers fans will.....

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.