Consecutive shutouts (two in a row for the A’s)
Posted by Andy on May 24, 2010
The Athletics pitched two consecutive shutouts over the weekend.
In their franchise history they've had a few 3-game shutout streaks:
| Rk | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | R | BB | SO | Opp | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OAK | 1996-08-28 | 1996-08-31 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 27.0 | 21 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 0.00 | BAL,BOS |
| 2 | OAK | 1983-08-14 | 1983-08-16 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 27.0 | 14 | 0 | 6 | 14 | 0.00 | MIN,CAL |
| 3 | OAK | 1972-07-31 | 1972-08-02 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 27.0 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 0.00 | TEX,KCR |
| 4 | OAK | 1968-06-11 | 1968-06-13 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 25.1 | 20 | 0 | 7 | 19 | 0.00 | CLE |
| 5 | KCA | 1966-09-14 | 1966-09-16 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 29.0 | 17 | 0 | 16 | 17 | 0.00 | CLE,WSA |
| 6 | OAK | 2010-05-22 | 2010-05-23 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 18.0 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 17 | 0.00 | SFG |
| 7 | OAK | 2007-06-09 | 2007-06-10 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 18.0 | 11 | 0 | 3 | 16 | 0.00 | SFG |
| 8 | OAK | 2006-05-31 | 2006-06-01 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 18.0 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 0.00 | KCR,MIN |
| 9 | OAK | 2006-04-07 | 2006-04-08 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 18.0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 0.00 | SEA |
They have a chance to tie their team-record streak when they face the Orioles in Baltimore on Tuesday night.
I also listed the 4 most recent 2-game streaks above. As you can see, the last time the A's did it was in 2007.
The A's became the 5th team so far this season to pitch consecutive shutouts. I have also listed below the most recent team (the 2008 Rangers, for goodness' sake) to pitch 3 straight shutouts:
| Rk | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | R | BB | SO | Opp | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TEX | 2008-05-07 | 2008-05-09 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 27.0 | 10 | 0 | 12 | 18 | 0.00 | SEA,OAK |
| 2 | OAK | 2010-05-22 | 2010-05-23 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 18.0 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 17 | 0.00 | SFG |
| 3 | CIN | 2010-05-11 | 2010-05-12 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 18.0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.00 | PIT |
| 4 | SDP | 2010-04-29 | 2010-04-30 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 18.0 | 15 | 0 | 4 | 21 | 0.00 | MIL |
| 5 | NYM | 2010-04-25 | 2010-04-27 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 14.0 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 13 | 0.00 | ATL,LAD |
| 6 | MIL | 2010-04-21 | 2010-04-22 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 18.0 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 20 | 0.00 | PIT |
Why is it surprising to see the 2008 Rangers there?
Here's why:
| Tm | #Pitch | PitchAge | R/G | W | L | CG | tmSHO | cgSHO | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOR | 19 | 28.6 | 3.77 | 86 | 76 | .531 | 3.49 | 15 | 13 | 5 |
| TBR | 21 | 27.5 | 4.14 | 97 | 65 | .599 | 3.82 | 7 | 12 | 5 |
| LAA | 19 | 27.6 | 4.30 | 100 | 62 | .617 | 3.99 | 7 | 10 | 1 |
| BOS | 23 | 29.2 | 4.28 | 95 | 67 | .586 | 4.01 | 5 | 16 | 2 |
| OAK | 24 | 26.5 | 4.29 | 75 | 86 | .466 | 4.01 | 4 | 7 | 1 |
| CHW | 19 | 28.4 | 4.47 | 89 | 74 | .546 | 4.06 | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| MIN | 19 | 27.5 | 4.57 | 88 | 75 | .540 | 4.16 | 5 | 10 | 2 |
| NYY | 27 | 30.6 | 4.49 | 89 | 73 | .549 | 4.28 | 1 | 11 | 0 |
| LgAvg | 23 | 28.3 | 4.68 | 83 | 79 | .510 | 4.35 | 5 | ||
| CLE | 28 | 28.3 | 4.70 | 81 | 81 | .500 | 4.45 | 10 | 13 | 5 |
| KCR | 25 | 27.5 | 4.82 | 75 | 87 | .463 | 4.48 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| SEA | 22 | 28.5 | 5.01 | 61 | 101 | .377 | 4.73 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| DET | 25 | 29.9 | 5.29 | 74 | 88 | .457 | 4.90 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| BAL | 26 | 27.9 | 5.40 | 68 | 93 | .422 | 5.13 | 4 | 4 | 1 |
| TEX | 30 | 28.1 | 5.97 | 79 | 83 | .488 | 5.37 | 6 | 8 | 2 |
| 316 | 28.3 | 4.68 | 1157 | 1111 | .510 | 4.35 | 75 |
In 2008, the Rangers had the worst ERA in the AL!
May 24th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Andy...
Where do the various stat questions for the blog come from? Is there a place where readers/users can pose a topic or even share results?
Keep up the good work - I can't help but click on the B-R facebook links. No matter how miniscule the stat question - it's always interesting!
- CT
May 24th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Thanks.
Suggestions are very much welcome. The best way at present to submit one is to email me at andy a.t baseball-reference.com. You could also post a comment on any post with your idea even if it's not relevant to the post. Steve, Raphy, Neil, and I always read all comments on our posts.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Of course, your A's search is only for the years we have boxscores. It is not unlikely that one of those great deadball-era A's teams had at least 3 shutouts in a row. The 1904, 1907-1910, and 1914 A's each had at least 20 shutouts during the season (according to the game finder tool). I don't think that can be used to search for streaks but I quickly looked at their schedules manually. They had 3 shutouts in a row on:
7/27/1904-7/29/04
5/16/1909-5/18/09
8/25/1914-8/26/14 (doubleheader)
Didn't find any of 4+. There could certainly be one in one of the years I didn't look at.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:22 am
The 2008 Rangers lost the game in which they scored their season high in runs (box score — what a donnybrook). At a couple of points in the fourth inning of that game the Red Sox' win expectancy was 100% (rounded, of course). The Rangers came back, took a late lead and reduced the Sox' wWE to 19% in the top of the seventh before Boston took back the lead for good.
All of which led me to wonder, has there ever been a game where the winning team had a mid-game win expectancy of 100%, fell behind to a win expectancy of 0%, and then came back to win?
[*makes mental note to check B-Ref box scores of several old Phillies-Cubs games*]
May 24th, 2010 at 11:24 am
A friend of mine used my tickets to that Rangers/Red Sox game and the second Ortiz homer of the first inning landed right in his seat--hit off his hand when a fan from behind clobbered him.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Most consecutive shutouts won by a team: six, by the 1903 Pirates (two each for Deacon Phillippe and Sam Leever, one each by Ed Doheny and Kaiser Wilhelm). The AL record is five, by the 1974 and 1995 (!) Orioles.
Source is this Baseball Almanac page.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Thanks, Andy... In the future I'll e-mail, but since there's an opening here...
I was watching the Yankees/Mets last night and the announcers kept talking about how good hitters Santana and Sabathia were. Early on, C.C. struck Santana out with a couple sliders, as if he was pitching to any regular. Started to make me think if there was a way in B-R to figure out which pitchers in MLB history surrendered the highest OBA to other pitchers? Who had the most trouble with that pesky #9 slot?
Thanks... Best site on the world wide web.
May 24th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
The answer is probably some crappy pitcher from the 1890s, when there was lots of offense and pitchers were relatively better hitters. But we don't have splits from that time.
For the era when splits exist...well, it's still some crappy pitcher, but I don't know that it can be easily searched. A perhaps more interesting question is which elite pitchers had more trouble retiring other pitchers than they should have.
May 24th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Yeah - I agree. It'd be interesting to see pitchers over a certain amount of innings - guys with staying power.