One And Done…And Rare
Posted by Steve Lombardi on April 15, 2008
Here's a fun little list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder - - Since 1956, games where the starting pitcher threw just one pitch and then left the game:
Games Link to Individual Games +-----------------+-----+-------------------------+ Wade Miller 1 Ind. Games Dennis Martinez 1 Ind. Games Al Leiter 1 Ind. Games Don Cardwell 1 Ind. Games Chris Bosio 1 Ind. Games Pedro Astacio 1 Ind. Games Games found: 6.
As crazy as this may sound, I expected to find more games than this. Not a ton of games, mind you. But, I would have guessed that there were at least 20 games like this since 1956. But, it's just a half-dozen. Rare, indeed.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Correct me if I'm wrong , but aren't pitch counts considered highly inaccurate prior to 2000? If so, then maybe the small number of games on the list isn't too surprising.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I would imagine that several of these are like the Astacio game where the first pitch of the game comes back to the mound and hits the pitcher, forcing him to leave the game because of injury (that or he pulls a muscle). Pre-1956, I bet a lot of those guys sucked it up and just pitched with injuries.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
This was just done on March 25.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Pitch counts aren't inaccurate prior to 2000, but incomplete. I think they're pretty complete for the past 15 years or so, but sporadic before that.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
As Johnny was saying. Here are the number of games with pitch counts since 1956.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/cF2e