Fernando’s Wild Ride to Start ’85
Posted by Raphy on April 16, 2008
Well, now that all 3 pitchers (see No Runs to Start the Season) failed in their attempts to start the season with three consecutive runless starts, our attention turns to Justin Germano who tonight will attempt to start his third straight game without allowing an earned run. This would tie him for second with a dozen others who have started the season with three straight earned-runless starts.
The best part of this list is that it affords us the opportunity to look at the leader, and the crazy start he had to his season.
In 1985 the Dodgers opened in Houston against the Astros. Fernando Valenzuela pitched decently that day, but not as well as Nolan Ryan, and the Astros won on two unearned runs. Fernando bounced back with two consecutive shutouts and his record stood at 2-1. Amazingly enough, in the fourth game of the season Fernando again lost 2-1 with both runs unearned and now his record stood at 2-2 despite not allowing an earned run all season.
This is where the streak ends, but Fernando wasn't done. On April 28, Fernando's fifth start to the season, he allowed his first earned run. The ninth inning solo home run Tony Gwynn was basically the only thing that Fernando allowed that day. Unfortunately for him, it was still too much. Fernando took the 1-0 loss (the fifth highest game score in a nine inning loss 1956-2007) and finished April with 3 losses despite only allowing 1 earned run.
Fernando would finish the season 18-17 17-10 and while he had other frustrating games, its hard to imagine that anything that year was as bad as his April.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Fernando posted a record of 17-10 in 1985. And how about that September 5th game! Two of the best pitchers of the time tossing all those goose eggs in the midst of a pennant race!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Thank you savoyspecial. I have corrected the information. (I put down the team's record in his games, not his own record.)
April 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I remember around '85-'86 it seemed like Gooden and Valenzuela matched up a number of times. Is there any easy way to check that, besides just going through every start Valenzuela had against the Mets one-by-one? (They probably didn't face off that often at all, but it such a big deal when they did that it stuck in my head.)
April 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Well, an imperfect way to identify Gooden vs. Valenzuela games would be to check out one against the other via the "Batter vs. Pitcher" tool. This assumes both pitched long enough for one to record a PA against the other. This generated the following games:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198405110.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198408270.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198505250.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198506040.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198905280.shtml
Of course, this is impossible to do in the AL.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I'm sure there's a better way, but since we're dealing with the NL you could use the Batter vs. Pitcher tool.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/ZcAV
(BTW Gooden had more PA's against Valenzuela than any other pitcher)
April 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Well, I had to count them up. Valenuela faced Gooden twice in '84 and thrice in '85. They didn't match up in '86, and after that Fernando was done as an elite pitcher.
If I'm counting correctly, in those 5 starts Gooden went 3-1, 1.05, 43 IP, 54 K. Valenzuela went 1-3, 2.44, 44.2 IP, 31 K. No wonder they stuck in my head.