Losing This One Must Have Been A Drag..Oh!
Posted by Steve Lombardi on May 4, 2010
Playing around with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Game Finder, I came across an interesting game between the Twins and Royals back on May 24, 1972. Click here to see the details.
Can you imagine pitching 12 innings, only allowing 8 baserunners - one on an error, while whiffing 13, and then getting tagged with the loss in a one-nothing game? Ouch.
Looking at all the games available via Play Index' Game Finder, I only found one game like this one: August 19, 1969. Poor Juan Marichal in that one.
Dick Drago played with Juan Marichal for the 1974 Boston Red Sox. I wonder if they ever traded "war stories" about these two games where they each took a hard "L."
May 4th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
"Can you imagine...."???? Yeah, I can imagine the ultimate "ouch" like you're talking about. Two words: Harvey Haddix. May 26, 1959.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
For a 9 inning game, this one was pretty painful as well:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200209140.shtml
The only run scored because one of the most sure-handed 1B in the game made an error (he only had 5 the whole year).
May 4th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I was going to write Phil's response almost word for word but he beat me to it.
Indeed, Harvey Haddix's "perfect loss" was probably the biggest "ouch" loss in the history of the game.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
October 2, 1908: Ed Walsh, White Sox — 4 H, 15 K in 8 innings‚ 1 run allowed on a passed ball, while Addie Joss is pitching a perfect game for Cleveland.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
September 9, 1965: Bob Hendley, Cubs - 8 IP, 1 H, 1BB, 1 unER on a throwing error, while Sandy Koufax throws a perfecto
May 4th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Less than a year before that valiant 12-inning effort, Dick Drago pitched (and lost) the shortest complete game I've ever heard of.
May 4th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
From the Walter Johnson biography at answers.com:
Johnson completely dominated batters through the 1919 season, which marked the end of the so-called "dead-ball era." But the Senators rarely were a winning team. The victories Johnson might have amassed with a better team would have brought him much closer to Cy Young's record of 511 wins. In the 279 games Johnson lost during his career, his team was shut out in 65 of them. In 27 games, Johnson lost by a score of 1-0. He also won 38 games by the same 1-0 score. Johnson holds the record both for 1-0 victories and 1-0 losses.
It's a hair off-topic, but that's a whole career of ouch!
May 5th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Marichal, of course, was the beneficiary of Warren Spahn's most famous hard-luck loss, this 16-inning thriller in 1963:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196307020.shtml