Game score > 60 in the post-season
Posted by Andy on October 16, 2009
Cliff Lee has a game score over 60 in his first two career post-season starts. Here are the only guys to do that in the last 20 post-seasons:
Games Link to Individual Games +-----------------+-----+-------------------------+ Pete Schourek 2 Ind. Games Curt Schilling 2 Ind. Games Charles Nagy 2 Ind. Games Cliff Lee 2 Ind. Games Darryl Kile 2 Ind. Games Orlando Hernandez 2 Ind. Games Doug Drabek 2 Ind. Games Chris Carpenter 2 Ind. Games Steve Avery 2 Ind. Games
Ok, wait, that's not quite right. This is a Pitching Game Finder search, limited to post-season and a player's first two games, and those with game scores over 60 in both. It doesn't consider any players who might have had relief appearances. In other words, a relief appearance doesn't receive a game score and so if any players had a relief appearance in their first two post-season games, they automatically cannot make this list.
A more complete list can be found here, using a streak finder. It adds in Jon Lester, Miguel Batista, and a few others who belong in the club, but also adds some guys who do not belong. In this case, a guy like Jose Contreras doesn't belong. He makes the list because he did it in his first 2 games with the White Sox. The Streak Finder considers streaks at the start of a player's career or tenure with a new team.
Dave Stewart, who also shows up on that streak list, also doesn't count since 1990 wasn't the beginning of his post-season career. The streak finder, since I limited it to 1990-present, ignores anything that happened before 1990. Mind you, Steward DID get a game score above 60 in his first 3 post-season starts--they just came in 1988. (He managed a score above 60 in 8 out of his first 9 career post-season starts...wow!)