Edwin Jackson gets hung out to dry
Posted by Andy on August 3, 2011
Edwin Jackson got rocked today by the Brewers, but Tony LaRussa left him in the game for 7 innings, presumably to preserve his bullpen. In the end, Jackson gave up 14 hits and 10 runs (8 earned).
Here are the 20 most recent appearances where a pitcher gave up at least 14 hits and at least 10 runs:
| Rk | Player | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | App,Dec | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | GSc | IR | IS | BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sean O'Sullivan | 2011-05-28 | KCR | TEX | L 1-10 | GS-6 ,L | 5.2 | 15 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 5 | -2 | 33 | ||
| 2 | Jason Marquis | 2006-07-18 | STL | ATL | L 5-14 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 3 | -7 | 31 | ||
| 3 | Jason Marquis | 2006-06-21 | STL | CHW | L 5-13 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -11 | 30 | ||
| 4 | Zack Greinke | 2005-06-10 | KCR | ARI | L 11-12 | GS-5 | 4.1 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 3 | -11 | 29 | ||
| 5 | Jimmy Anderson | 2003-06-26 | CIN | STL | L 7-11 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 2 | -8 | 31 | ||
| 6 | Mike Oquist | 1998-08-03 | OAK | NYY | L 1-14 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 16 | 14 | 14 | 3 | 3 | 4 | -21 | 32 | ||
| 7 | Scott Sanders | 1998-04-14 | DET | TEX | L 2-11 | GS-5 ,L | 4.0 | 16 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 0 | -15 | 29 | ||
| 8 | Greg Hibbard | 1994-05-24 | SEA | OAK | L 1-10 | GS-6 ,L | 6.0 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 36 | ||
| 9 | Danny Jackson | 1993-07-08 | PHI | SFG | L 2-13 | GS-5 ,L | 4.2 | 15 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 2 | -1 | 33 | ||
| 10 | Bob Forsch | 1989-08-03 | HOU | CIN | L 2-18 | 1-7 | 7.0 | 18 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 39 | |
| 11 | Tom McCarthy | 1989-06-23 (1) | CHW | MIL | L 5-17 | 3-8f | 6.0 | 14 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 36 | |
| 12 | Mark Davis | 1984-05-07 | SFG | CHC | L 7-10 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 14 | 10 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 29 | ||
| 13 | Jerry Augustine | 1982-05-11 | MIL | KCR | L 3-17 | GS-5 ,L | 5.0 | 15 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 1 | 2 | -12 | 31 | ||
| 14 | Mike Norris | 1980-09-26 | OAK | MIL | L 7-10 | CG 9 ,L | 9.0 | 17 | 10 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 21 | 45 | ||
| 15 | Bill Travers | 1977-08-14 (2) | MIL | CLE | L 5-14 | GS-8 ,L | 7.2 | 18 | 14 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 2 | -13 | 45 | ||
| 16 | Paul Mitchell | 1976-06-26 | OAK | MIN | L 3-11 | GS-7 ,L | 6.1 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 1 | -2 | 38 | ||
| 17 | Dave LaRoche | 1974-08-20 | CHC | LAD | L 8-18 | 2-6 | 4.1 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 29 | |
| 18 | Whitey Ford | 1966-07-02 | NYY | WSA | L 4-10 | GS-6 ,L | 6.0 | 15 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 16 | 34 | ||
| 19 | Galen Cisco | 1962-07-27 (2) | BOS | WSA | L 1-14 | GS-6 ,L | 5.1 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 2 | -14 | 36 | ||
| 20 | Tom Brewer | 1960-05-17 | BOS | CHW | L 6-11 | GS-7 ,L | 7.0 | 14 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 38 |
It doesn't happen very often, and note that most of the appearances are shorter than Jackson's. The last time a pitcher went at least 7 innings was in 1989 when Bob Forsch did it, and that actually came in relief after Jim Clancy was unable to retire any batters before allowing 7 runs.
The last time before today that a starter did it was Mike Norris in 1980.
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Tony Larussa was the manager for three of these games, (counting today).
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:27 pm
How about LaRussa was the manager for 3 of the last 4 times this has happened!
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Marquis is the only pitcher since 1940 to allow at least 12 runs multiple times in a season :
Generated 8/3/2011.
Other than those 2 games in a month, Marquis never had a game like that in his career.
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:43 pm
The White Sox scored 20 runs on the Cardinals the night before the first Marquis game. The bullpen got a nice rest the next game when Anthony Reyes pitched a one-hitter but got the loss. The one hit happened to be a homer from Jim Thome.
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Jackson had a better day today than Gavin Floyd.
Floyd got raked for 10 runs (all earned) in 2.1 IP. His game Score was a nice round zero. Floyd only gave up 9 hits though, so he won't make the list.
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:12 pm
What about poor Vin Mazzaro? 14 runs on 11 hits.
One of the best pitching lines ever though was Mel Rojas for the 1999 Tigers (April 29):
1.2 innings of relief, 11 earned runs AND a blown save in a 22-6 loss. It's gotta be tough to lose by 16 and have a blown save in the same game.
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:17 pm
Gotta respect Mike Norris, and really all these pitchers, for hanging in there!
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Mike Oquist — lowest Game Score since 1936.
August 4th, 2011 at 1:28 am
"Gotta respect Mike Norris, and really all these pitchers, for hanging in there!"
That was Norris second to last start of the season. In the previous 3 starts he went 9, 11, 9 IP, and faced 115 Batters.
He went into the game with a 2.26 ERA and came out of it with a 2.52 ERA,He finished up the season going 22-9 9 with a 2.53 ERA to go with a finishing second to Rudy May who had a 2.46
Steve Stone went 25-7, 3.23 ERA to take the CY Young Award.
That game pretty much robbed Norris of the CY award, as he would have had to maintain the large ERA lead to overcome Stones wins advantage in the eyes of the voters.
August 4th, 2011 at 1:31 am
"The last time before today that a starter did it was Mike Norris in 1980."
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that most of the entries in the table were starters, all but Forsch, McCarthy, and LaRoche. Norris is the only one on the list to pitch a complete game.
Greinke was the only starter to do it and avoid the loss. Pretty amazing, give up 11 runs in a 12-11 loss, and not get the loss.
August 4th, 2011 at 2:45 am
Mike Norris was just ridiculously unlucky. Look at that line. 9 strikeouts, 1 walk, 17 hits. Purely bad luck.
August 4th, 2011 at 3:55 am
Gerry, sorry, poor writing by me. I meant that Norris was the last starter to go 7 IP in such a game.
August 4th, 2011 at 7:46 am
Ah... memories of 2006, when the Cardinals proved you could win a championship despite only three good months (April, May and October).
And to those who have this notion that Cards fans don't boo their own unlike in other cities, Marquis is one who will beg to differ. By the end of that '06 season, he was being mercilessly booed at home (Along with closer Jason Isringhausen, but that's another story). Winning 14 games despite an ERA over 6.00 is quite an accomplishment....
August 4th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Good god...Jason Marquis twice in less than a month in 2006...LaRussa is a masochist.
August 4th, 2011 at 8:43 am
That MIke Norris game is fascinating -- he didn't really get hung out to dry, except in the general sense that Billy Martin refused to develop a bullpen on that team. Through seven innings, the A's were up 7-4. In the eighth, Norris gave up a two-out single to make it 7-5. So he wasn't really being hung out to dry when he took the mound for the ninth, although a normal manager would probably have turned to the bullpen. He did seem to be out of gas -- single, groundout, single, single. And yet who knows? Two of those singles were to 3B -- so maybe they were just dribblers and Andrew is right that it was just bad luck. Then Ben Oglivie hits an inside-the-park grand slam! Can't tell from BR whether it was a bloop that went under Dwayne Murphy's glove and rolled all the way to the wall or whether it was a mightier shot. And then Gorman Thomas followed with a solo HR to make it 10-7. Norris would give up two more singles before getting out of the inning.
The A's led the league with 94 CGs -- the Brewers were second with 48 -- and trailed everyone else with only 13 saves, despite 83 wins. No other team that won as many as 77 games had fewer than 30 saves. Dennis Eckersley was still seven years away.
August 4th, 2011 at 8:51 am
@14, Dave, LaRussa is a genius (ask him, he will no doubt confirm it). They guy I feel bad about is Norris-who, along with the rest of those A's pitchers, was absolutely ruined by Billy Martin. Check out the 1980 A's starting rotation: Langford, Norris, Keough, McCatty and Kingman. None of them older than 28, all five pitched over 210 innings, 93 complete games between them. Then see where they were in 1983.
August 4th, 2011 at 9:11 am
LaRussa needs to retire. Drill Ryan Braun in the back with a right handed pitcher to lead off an inning with Fielder comming up next? Complain the Brewers are cheating by having different color lights? Whatever.
Google "LaRussa complains" returns 20,100 hits in 0.16 seconds.
August 4th, 2011 at 9:48 am
#16, I had never thought about that, but man you are right on the mark. That list of Oakland starters is quite the group of good young pitchers who flamed out. Seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
August 4th, 2011 at 10:09 am
Two appearances after getting rocked by the Senators, Galen Cisco was released by the Red Sox and picked up by the Mets, with whom he flourished 🙂
August 4th, 2011 at 10:33 am
@15
Eric, nice post. Thanks for doing the digging into the Norris game.
@16 @18
Not disagreeing with your conclusions regarding Billy Martin's rotation, but, playing devil's advocate, no less than Nolan Ryan is a proponent of extending starters, building up their arms and pitching a lot of innings is he not?
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this already, but Edwin Jackson surrendered three home runs, all to the same batter, Casey McGehee. That can't have happened in one game very frequently.
August 4th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Neil, I'm not really saying one thing or another about the best way to use pitchers--just that it's a good point that Billy Martin (or the pitching coach) likely did something to screw up the guys on that staff since they all flamed out after showing some really good talent.
Although I respect Nolan Ryan, I wonder if he suffers from the same problem as Ted Williams and Joe Morgan have---extremely talented players in the topmost echelon of players who don't understand why all the other players can't do what they did. Ryan's body was remarkable in terms of the punishment his arm could take (thanks in large part, I think, to his delivery style and incredible leg strength). I wonder if he's really able to evaluate "average" major league pitchers since he wasn't average.
August 4th, 2011 at 10:43 am
It was a rough night all around for pitchers last night. As Spartan Bill noted in #5, Gavin Floyd took it on the chin.
And don't forget Carlos Villenueva getting pounded for 8 ER in 2.2 IP by the notoriously heavy-hitting Rays. 🙂 At least, mercifully, he was yanked when he didn't have it.
A.J. Burnett didn't exactly lock down a big lead either. Wonder why Girardi didn't let him finish the fifth with a six-run lead to get the win? Sheer frustration?
August 4th, 2011 at 11:13 am
@16 McCatty started developing arm trouble in '81 and was out of baseball by '85 at age 31. He's the pitching coach for the Nats now and is an advocate for bringing young arms along slowly. It's an organizational philosophy so it's ironic that both of their best young starters have already had Tommy John surgery. It makes me think the Nats must be doing something wrong in their handling and training of pitchers, although I can't figure out what.
@20 My main rival in my "fun" fantasy league has both McGehee and Edwin Jackson (and Burnett, who also got rocked yesterday). Somehow came out of the day +1.5. I know that there are a lot of other factors in play, e.g., where you are relative to your league in various stats, but it would be interesting to see a study of whether a matchup like that (your offensive player beating up your pitcher) is likely to be a plus or a minus, all other things equal. Anyone ever done or seen any "saber-roto-metrics"?
August 4th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Neil-Girardi took Hughes out under similar circumstances about ten days ago. Burnett had a 13-1 lead, then it's 13-7, with two men on base. One more bad pitch it's 13-10, and then you have to really burn your bullpen because you are in a tight game.
Regarding Martin (and Ryan): I really don't know. Martin was old-school, and his rode his rotations hard. But those five from the A's were extreme examples, and all five got burned out. Later on, I have a distinct memory of Martin leaving Guidry out there for 172 pitches one night (and Guidry was not a big guy).
August 4th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Kelly/23, I would think you'd usually root for your pitcher, because they play fewer games than batters, and because the potential negatives are far worse (allowing 62 runs in an inning, vs going 0-4).
August 4th, 2011 at 11:52 am
Watched Yankee-Sox game last night,,,and yeah AJ HAD to be pulled. It was 13-1 after 3, her gae up 5 runs on 5 hits int eh 4th, came out for the 5th, got one out, gave up three hits, so it was 13-7, 1 out, 2nd and 3rd. Another single and it is 13-9. so Girardi had enough. All in all he got 13 outs and gave up 13 hits. wow. a .500 avg against!
Did you know AJ has never won a game for the Yankees in August in 2+ seasons? Rediculous for $18 million. And they are going to send down Nova (9-4, 4.01 ERA) for that guy?
August 4th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
@24 @26
Noodle & Mike L., at risk of taking the discussion off-topic, what will be interesting is the Yankees' post-season pitching rotation, given the lack of confidence in AJ and, perhaps, Phil Hughes.
They didn't pick up any starting pitching help at the deadline.
August 4th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Neil, I think the Yankees were in zugzwag. Trading for a back of the rotation guy wasn't going to help. It would have to be top tier talent. The price they were asked to pay for Ubaldo was absurd-to them--it would have gutted the upper levels of their pitching prospects, and it's not a certainty he's really healthy and would be able to perform. And I think Cashman has figured out that not every pitcher can deal with New York, so, it's one thing to waste money on free agents (AJ, Pavano, Soriano), and it's another thing to waste prospects. Structurally, the Yankees have a longer term problem, in that they have a lot of money tied up in aging players. They have to be able to filter in the younger arms.
August 4th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
That Athletics rotation from 1980 got mentioned in an SI article today which derided (rightfully) the idea of a six-man rotation. It's like the entire history of baseball was changed because a bunch of guys got hurt on one team, one time. Nobody ever heard of coincidence?
Besides, even with the reduced workload, it's not as if pitchers are getting hurt less often. They are constantly injured anyway, so what's the point of coddling them? It's pointless.
August 4th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Jiffy, the six man rotation seems odd to me as well, especially since I grew up in the era of four man, 38-40 starts per season, with a spot starter/long man. It's probably fair to say that for every CC or Halladay, there is also a Kerry Wood, Bedard, Haren, or a Mark Prior, etc. Genes obviously play a role along with innings pitched. A number of doctors have said that the number of pitches one throws in a game can increase the possibility of injury-as fatigue sets in, mechanics break down. So, Billy Martin's use of his staff in 1980 wasn't just a factor of the five man rotation-it was the number of innings these guys logged per start. Norris averaged more than eight and half innings per start. By contrast, Halladay and Lee averaged about 7.5 last year, and both are below that rate this year. CC is at around 7 innings per start.
August 4th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
@17:
Google 'doug b idiot':
About 13,200,000 results (0.30 seconds)
August 4th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I agree, as a Cards fan, that Tony the Pony needs to retire. The Furcal trade was a make-up for blowing it on getting Theriot and shipping out Brendan "Infield Triple" Ryan because he wasn't a TLR "boy."
The Cards won in 2006 in part because of being an underdog, I think. Look at the A's under TLR. 1988 and 90, huge favorites, and they ... choked. Pressure?
August 4th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
@16, 18, and 20
Definitely not coincidental.
"Thirty years ago, Oakland A's pitchers generally finished what they started. In 1980 and '81, Oakland starters, under the direction of hard-nosed manager Billy Martin, combined for an incredible 154 complete games in 271 starts. They paid a price, though, with injuries and shortened careers. And of course it would be unthinkable in today's era of pampered pitchers."
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/18/sports/la-sp-1981-oakland-pitchers-20110719
August 4th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
"Google 'doug b idiot':
About 13,200,000 results (0.30 seconds)'
I've been busy! 🙂
I wonder though if a Cards fan realizes how foolish and whining their manager (and Chris Carpenter) sound. We've heard complaints our Brewers don't tuck in their shirts, complaints that the lights aren't fair... and other teams have heard complaints about their mound, or the baseballs are too slick. It goes on and on.
If Carpenter thinks the Brewers are stealing signs... change the signs. Stop looking for excuses. It's straining your team trying to come up with them.
St. Louis is a classic baseball town with a great history. LaRussa should become part of the history. he's always complained about nonsense but as he ages he's becomming even more rediculous.
August 4th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
that Bob Forsch game was a RELIEF appearance!
Houston threw 158 pitches in 8 innings that day while Tom Browning tossed only 87 for his 9 inning complete game.
Jim Clancy started and didn't record an out. Of course Bob didn't help him out any as the Reds scored 14 in the FIRST INNING ALONE!
I shake my head at that one. Forsch throws 6 more innings only giving up 3 runs after that 14 run first. That's a trooper.
Of course Juan Agosto needed to come in for the 9th to make the day complete by throwing 2 wild pitches and allowing another run. Browning must have felt like he was reliving a little league game.
August 4th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
@29 @30
Mike L. and Jiffy, aren't the Tampa Bay Rays currently using a (modified) six-man rotation?
August 4th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
@34
Doug B., and others. There is a fair degree of Tony LaRussa venom in the posts here.
Not trying to manipulate opinion at all in BBRef, but why is LaRussa so poorly regarded by intelligent minds on our site while the man-in-the-street consensus is that Tony is a deep-thinking, cerebral, ahead-of-his time manager.
Has his time come and gone? Does a successful manager get arrogant with age? I am not close to his day-to-day decision-making, so some one please enlighten.
As I post, the Cardinals are in a tight one with the Marlins
August 4th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
The Yankees and Red Sox are both using 6-man right now although only for a turn or two. It's not uncommon this time of year to give a bit of extra rest all around.
August 4th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I am shocked AJ Burnett is not on this list.