Two pitchers giving up 8 ER
Posted by Andy on April 13, 2010
More on that Braves-Pads game. The Braves became one of the few teams to have two different pitchers give up at least 8 ER in a game. Below are the games from 1920-1939 and 1952-present. Notice anything interesting?
| Rk | Tm | Opp | Date | #Matching ▾ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NYY | CLE | 2009-04-18 | 2 | |
| 2 | BAL | TEX | 2007-08-22 (1) | 2 | |
| 3 | FLA | NYM | 2006-07-08 (2) | 2 | |
| 4 | PHI | NYM | 2005-04-19 | 2 | |
| 5 | CLE | TEX | 2004-08-17 | 2 | |
| 6 | BOS | TEX | 2002-08-01 | 2 | |
| 7 | ARI | COL | 2000-06-18 | 2 | |
| 8 | BAL | TEX | 1996-04-19 | 2 | |
| 9 | PIT | LAD | 1994-04-17 | 2 | |
| 10 | STL | SDP | 1993-08-24 | 2 | |
| 11 | HOU | CHC | 1987-06-03 | 2 | |
| 12 | NYM | PHI | 1985-06-11 | 2 | |
| 13 | CIN | CHC | 1961-06-28 (1) | 2 | |
| 14 | PHA | BOS | 1954-07-11 (1) | 2 | |
| 15 | CHW | BOS | 1938-08-27 (1) | 2 | |
| 16 | STL | BSN | 1936-08-25 (1) | 2 | |
| 17 | STL | BRO | 1936-07-29 (1) | 2 | |
| 18 | SLB | DET | 1935-06-30 (1) | 2 | |
| 19 | PHI | NYG | 1933-08-02 (2) | 2 | |
| 20 | CHW | NYY | 1931-07-26 (2) | 2 | |
| 21 | CLE | WSH | 1930-07-19 (2) | 2 | |
| 22 | PHI | CHC | 1930-06-23 | 2 | |
| 23 | PHI | STL | 1929-07-06 (2) | 2 | |
| 24 | DET | CLE | 1921-04-28 | 2 | |
| 25 | WSH | SLB | 1920-09-11 (2) | 2 |
Many of these games were part of doubleheaders. (That's what the 1 or 2 in parentheses means.)
This makes sense in the sense that on doubleheader days, the pitching staff can get a little thin. The manager might be reluctant to move an ineffective pitcher, especially if he's following anothe guy who was already ineffective.
April 12th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
The inning breakdown of the runs scored by the Mets in that 4/19/2005 game in Philadelphia is:
1 2 5 1 2 5 0 0 0
Too bad the Phillies couldn't come up with a third pitcher to continue the sequence. In 2005, that was still a possibility for them. (Since it was a road game for New York, they had nine full offensive innings.)
The most recent game listed (before today's Braves game) is one of two games in the oughts/noughts/2000s in which the Yankees gave up 22 runs to the Indians in a game played in New York. I guess the runs in the other game were spread more evenly among the pitching staff.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:20 am
The Mets starting pitcher in the 1985 game retired only one Phillie. But he only gave up 6 earned runs. It was two relievers in that game that qualified for this list.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:23 am
The game where Texas scored 30 runs very nearly had THREE pitchers with 8 ER given up.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Meet Ed Heusser, the Wild Elk of the Wasatch, who surrendered 8+ runs while mopping up in both of the 1936 Cardinals' qualifying games. Jo-Jo Reyes may find it consoling that Heusser led the 1944 NL in ERA and finished his career with a 102 ERA+.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:49 am
More to the point, though, I'm going to be able to tell my grandkids that I watched the first major-league game in history in which a hitter for the winning team posted a stolen base, a triple and a homer in one of his first 129 career games and two different pitchers give up at least 8 earned runs in the same game for the losing team. I know they'll understand why it was such a big day in my life.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:17 am
It appears that the Phillies-Cubs game from June 23, 1930 is the only where two pitchers for the same team gave up more than 10 runs apiece, although they were not all earned. Ah, that infamous 1930 Phillies pitching staff, would have been surprised if they didn't make this list.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:28 am
If the Phillies had just left Claude Willoughby in to face two more batters in the top of the first of that 7/6/29 game, they'd have had three different pitchers surrendering 8+ runs in the same game. Even at the Baker Bowl, for the Cardinals to put up 28 runs was doing some hittin'.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
I remember a number of these games. The O's/Rangers game particularly.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
I had never known that that 30-3 game in Baltimore was part of a doubleheader. The Orioles got swept, but they "only" gave up 9 runs in the second game and scored almost that many themselves.
I remember a newspaper headline the next day, in one of the tabloid papers that can be found in the Trenton, NJ, area (Philadelphia Daily News, New York Daily News, New York Post, or Trenton's own Trentonian; less likely the Delaware County Daily Times) saying something like, "Orioles give up four touchdowns and a safety." Although four touchdowns with kicked extra points and a safety is the most mathematically expedient way to reach 30 points in the NFL, I had a feeling that this particular scoring combination rarely happens. I checked several games in which one team had 30 points in the two NFL seasons prior to this game plus the handful of pre-season games that had been played thus far in 2007, and I didn't find any in which the 30 points arose from four touchdowns, four kicked conversions, and a safety. The most common way to 30 appears to be three touchdowns, three kicked extra points, and three field goals. In one game, the team with 30 points scored a winning touchdown in overtime, a situation in which no conversion is attempted. This team had four touchdowns, three conversions, and a field goal. There was another game in which the losing team scored 30 with a similar number of scores, except that following their fourth touchdown, late in the 4th quarter, they attempted a two-point conversion with the hope of further closing the gap but were not successful.
The score of the second game was Cowboys 9, Ravens 7 - I mean Rangers 9, Flyers 7 - no, Rangers 9, Orioles 7. It could be said that the Orioles gave up one touchdown (plus a kicked extra point) and a safety in that game, but I suspect that the most common source of 9 points in an NFL game is three field goals.