Most pinch-hitters used on Opening Day
Posted by Andy on March 11, 2011
Since 1920, the record for most pinch-hitters used by a single team in an Opening Day game is 5, done 14 times:
| Tm | Opp | Date ▴ | #Matching |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOS | NYY | 1926-04-13 | 5 |
| NYY | BOS | 1950-04-18 | 5 |
| CIN | CHC | 1952-04-15 | 5 |
| NYY | WSH | 1954-04-13 | 5 |
| CHW | DET | 1959-04-10 | 5 |
| KCA | CHW | 1960-04-19 | 5 |
| LAD | CIN | 1962-04-10 | 5 |
| CHC | STL | 1965-04-12 | 5 |
| STL | PHI | 1966-04-13 | 5 |
| CIN | ATL | 1974-04-04 | 5 |
| MIN | OAK | 1980-04-10 | 5 |
| LAD | STL | 1984-04-03 | 5 |
| ATL | LAD | 1991-04-10 | 5 |
| FLA | PHI | 2001-04-02 | 5 |
Only 4 of these teams won their games, the most recent being the Twins in 1980. I guess that makes sense--teams that are pinch-hitting a lot are probably behind in the game, meaning they have a better chance of losing the game.
I just ran some pinch-hitting numbers for all games (not just Opening Day). Since 2001, there have been 129 games where a team used at least pinch-hitters and won the game. Over the same period, teams lost 212 games in which they used at least 5 pinch-hitters. That's a .378 W-L%.
March 11th, 2011 at 10:28 am
The 1980 Twins used a PR and a defensive replacement too. That means 16 non-pitchers appeared.
When did they change the opening day roster from 28 to 25? I am wondering whether the Twins only carried 9 pitchers that day.
In the same game OAK almost made the list too. They used 4 PH's, a PR and a defensive replacement.
March 11th, 2011 at 10:50 am
@1
I was thinking that perhaps there were a bunch of off-days early in the year which let them carry an extra bat the first couple of weeks (happens all the time these days).
But the opposite was true. The season started with 12 games in the first 11 days (the double header apparently scheduled)... all on the road!
March 11th, 2011 at 11:57 am
these are all for one team
the total game record is 8 PH back to 1920
March 11th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I see in the 4-18-50 game Sox reliever Walt Masterson was the losing pitcher & collected a hold. How frequently does that happen?
March 11th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Followup to Jack @4:
In that same game, Yankees reliever Don Nelson got the win despite issuing 5 walks in 2 innings. That "feat" -- a relief win with 5+ walks in 2 IP or less -- has been achieved just twice since then, by Mark Leiter in 1998 and the immortal Adam Eaton in 2009.
(BTW, that Eaton game has to be "seen" to be believed: After giving up 3 runs in the top of the 14th, Eaton batted for himself in the bottom half, with the bases loaded and 1 out -- and drew a walk from SF reliever Justin Miller. After a pitching change, Ryan Spilborghs hit a grand slam to win it.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200908240.shtml
March 11th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Unless Adam Eaton somehow finds a spot on a MLB roster in 2011, the game John Autin referred to will go down in history as the final game of Eaton's career.
How many other pitchers ended their careers with both an RBI and subsequently scoring the winning run on an extra inning walk-off? I am guessing it is a pretty short list.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Jack @4 re: how frequently does a reliever get a Hold and a Loss in the same game?
In 2010, there were 20 "H+L".
-- There were 2,112 Holds, so H+L accounted for about 1% of all Holds.
-- There were 672 relief losses, so H+L accounted for about 3% of all relief losses.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
@3 and "the total game record is 8 PH back to 1920"
Not sure exactly what you're referring to here. Is it that you found a game (not an opening day game, presumably) where one team used 8 PH?
Anyway, the '59 White Sox-Tigers game on this list featured 9 PH by both teams, plus 3 PR and 12 pitchers. Altogether, a total of 43 players in the game, a 14-inning, four-and-a-half-hour marathon.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Oops. Missed one. It was 4 PR in the '59 White Sox-Tigers game.
March 11th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
@6, Spartan Bill -- Thanks for the extra info on the immortal Adam Eaton.
BTW, if anyone wonders why I call him "the immortal Adam Eaton"....
There have been many lucky pitchers in baseball history, but there's a compelling case that Adam Eaton was the luckiest:
-- Of the 658 modern pitchers with at least 100 decisions and a winning record, Eaton's 84 ERA+ is the absolute worst.
-- Eaton never had a good year (OK, he had a 103 ERA+ as a rookie, but with a 1.444 WHIP and 1.48 K/BB ratio) and he was not at all durable, even in the seasons when he didn't get hurt. Yet Eaton earned over $25 million in his MLB career. It's mind-boggling. Texas traded for Eaton after his injury-plagued 2005 season (129 IP, 90 ERA+), giving up the young Adrian Gonzalez and pitcher Chris Young for Eaton and reliever Akinori Otsuka. Eaton had an awful year -- he lasted 13 games, 65 IP, with a 90 ERA+ -- but the Phillies nevertheless signed him as a free agent, for 2 years and $15 million. In those 2 years, Eaton made 49 starts and had a 6.10 ERA. They released him the following spring; the Orioles grabbed him and stuck him right into their rotation, giving him 8 starts to prove that he still couldn't get hitters out (8.56 ERA), so they dumped him ... and the Rockies picked him up.
And it's not as though Eaton had pitched great coming up through the minors, either. The Padres drafted him out of high school in the 1st round and hustled him through the minors; he joined their rotation with just 3 AAA starts on his resume.
He must have looked great in bullpen sessions.
March 11th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
On the other hand, Adam Eaton did go 4 for 11 as a pinch-hitter, with a double and 3 walks. (But never on Opening Day....)
March 11th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
OK, Andy, I'm getting back on topic (or at least close to it)....
Highest Opening Day pinch-hitter WPA, for recent decades:
2001-10:
1. 0.530, Eric Byrnes, 4/5/2004, OAK over TEX: Bottom of the 8th, 2 outs, 2-run double turns a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 lead.
2. 0.443, Mendy Lopez, 4/5/2004, KCR over CHW: Bottom of the 9th, 3-run HR off Damaso Marte ties the game; two batters later, Carlos Beltran wins it with a 2-run shot off Marte. For Mendy Lopez, this game represented the only HR and 3 of his 4 RBI for the year, in which he had just 4 hits in 38 AB before getting released.
(In both of these games, the hero was pinch-hitting for a pinch-hitter, after a pitching change.)
1991-2000:
1. 0.589, Geno Petralli, 4/6/1992, TEX over SEA: Top of the 8th, 2 outs, down 2, Petralli greets Mike Schooler (the 4h pitcher of the inning) with a grand slam; 4 more batters hit safely before Schooler finally ends the 9-run inning. It was the only HR for Petralli in 94 games that year. (Schooler's WPA was -0.834 for this game; in retrospect, it marked the beginning of the end of his MLB career.)
2. 0.467, Jim Tatum, 4/26/1995, COL over NYM: Bottom of the 13th, 1 out, down 1, RBI double ties the game. This was Tatum's only double among his 8 hits that year. (Brutal game for the Mets: They took a 1-run lead in the top of the 9th; in the bottom, John Franco walked Walt Weiss, who scored on a 2-out double. Mets went ahead again in the 13th; Tatum tied it up. Mets took their last lead in the 14th; then Dante Bichette won it with a 3-run HR right after 3B Tim Bogar booted a potential game-ending DP ball.)
1981-90:
1. 0.383, Randy Milligan, 4/3/1989, BAL over BOS: Milligan's WPA was built on 2 virtually identical ABs. In the bottom of the 9th, 1 out, tie game, Milligan pinch-hit for Jim Traber and hit a single off new reliever Bob Stanley (in his final season), sending Mickey Tettleton to 3rd -- but Craig Worthington and then Rene Gonzalez stranded the runner. In the 11th, again with 1 out and Tettleton on 1st, Milligan singled him to 3rd, Worthington singled him home -- and the '89 Orioles had their first win exactly 21 games earlier than the '88 club had done.
(That was the only Opening Day PH WPA of at least 0.3 during the 1980s.)
March 11th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
@10 - Actually Eaton was originally drafted by the Phillies and then traded away when he was still a minor leaguer. The Phillies got Andy Ashby from San Diego in that deal.
Eaton, Ashby, and Mike Jackson were all pitchers that were originally with the Phillies but got away early in their careers. Eaton and Jackson were traded, while Ashby was picked by Colorado in the expansion draft. All three eventually returned to the team and were major disappointments the second time around. I know that Jackson never even appeared in a regular season game for the team after being injured warming up in the bullpen in the season opener. I think injuries were also the cause of Ashby's lack of success after his return.
The only thing I remember about any of Eaton's games with the Phillies is that he was their pitcher the day that some Colorado grounds crew members almost got swallowed up by the tarp.
March 12th, 2011 at 10:44 am
Since we're totally off track about Eaton, just let me add:
a) the $25 million (actually $25,981,666) doesn't include his first or last seasons, meaning he almost certainly topped $27 million (or more!) and
b) he actually had more value according to WAR as a batter in his 400 plate appearances than he did as a pitcher.
and @1 1980 was Tony LaRussa's first full season as a manager so most pitching staffs hadn't swollen to the 13 man monstrosities they currently are. That year Minnesota used 14 pitchers the entire season and 5 of them totaled 100 innings pitched between them.