Starting the Celebration – Winning a Postseason Series with a K
Posted by Raphy on October 15, 2009
In the history of Major League Baseball there have been 245 postseason series completed. 27 of those series (see here, here and here) were won by the offense, with an exciting walk-off win. The remaining 218 (see here and here) were won with the pitcher on the mound. While the pitcher who has been in the middle of the celebration the most is obvious, the runner-ups are not:
| Mariano Rivera | 12 |
| Rich Gossage | 5 |
| Randy Myers | 4 |
| Brad Lidge | 4 |
| Jason Isringhause | 4 |
| Dennis Eckersley | 4 |
Limiting this list a little further does turn up a bit of interesting trivia. Here are the pitchers who have ended more than 1 post-season series with a strike-out:
| Randy Myers | 2 |
| Brad Lidge | 2 |
| Orel Hershiser | 2 |
| Adam Wainwright | 2 |
| Jesse Orosco | 2 |
| Jonathan Broxton | 2 |
| Joe Borowski | 2 |
Notice something a little strange about this list? Mariano Rivera has finished off 12 post-season series, but only once with a strikeout. In fact (present and future) Hall of Fame closers Rivera, Gossage and Eckersley, who have combined to complete 21 series, combined to end a series with a strikeout as many times as starter Orel Hershiser did it by himself.
My thanks to Sean for providing me with the list of post season games ended on a play that was not a PA.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
most amazingly...orosco, hershiser and wainright did it in ending two consecutive series within the same playoff season (CS and WS of same season). but most amazing of all is that hershiser did it both ending complete games. there is no question in my mind that the pitching hershiser did from August 19 to October 20 is the greatest two full months of pitching any major leaguer has ever performed.
many of you may be aware of what hershiser did during this timeframe. but it is worth reviewing again. i happen to be working at elias at the time, and followed it very closely. as a reds fan, i was very pleased with danny jackson's effort that year. by the end of august, hershisher was 17-8 with a 2.88 while jackson was 19-6 with a 2.59 era. that september, jackson was 4-2 with one shut out, a 3.38 era, while hershiser went 5-0 with 5 shut outs and a 0.709 WHIP.
but hershiser wasn't done with that. in the NLCS he started three times against a very good hitting mets, missing out on winning the first one because of a blown save by Howell, missing out on winning his second start because of errors by hamilton and gibson, and winning game with a complete game shut out (ending with a K LOOKING). oh yeah, he also got a SAVE in game four, getting mcreynolds to pop up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th!
and then in the world series, he completed two games against the bash brothers and the crazy power of the athletics, shutting them out once, and then giving up two runs (on a sac fly and on a ground ball single) in the final game, ending with a K.
so from August 19 to October 20, hershiser started 14 games, completed 12, 9 of which were shut outs. in 124.2 IPs he gave up 9 ERs for an ERA of 0.65, he gave up zero home runs and issued 28 walks. and don't forget one Save. One-full third of that was during post season competition, in which he was awarded the NLCS MVP and WS MVP. The other two-thirds of this time frame, Hershiser set the MLB record of 59 2/3 consecutive innings without giving up a run.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Chalk one more up for Rivera.