Brothers in arms
Posted by Andy on July 6, 2007
A very nice piece over at The Hardball Times by Richard Barbieri looks at some of the pairs of brothers who have played MLB, with a focus on the Hoffman brothers.
It's true that the Phillies have often been on the shorter end of brother combos in baseball. Aside from the ones mentioned in the article, the Phillies also ended up with Tom Barrett (instead of Marty), Juan Bell (instead of George, who the Phillies lost in the Rule 5 draft to Toronto), Ken Brett (instead of George, although this one is tough since Ken Brett was pretty good hinmself), Tom Delahanty (instead of brother Jim, but of course they did have brother Ed), Ron Roenicke (instead of Gary), Mark Leiter (instead of Al), Rich Surhoff (instead of B.J.), Frank Torre (instead of Joe), and Mack Wheat (instead of Zack).
But the one I remember most...
...is that during one of the franchise's terrible periods, the Phillies had Mike Maddux just as his little brother Greg was coming into his own.
Perhaps, though, we remember Mike Maddux a bit harshly. Checking out his stats page, we see that his career ERA was 4.05 vs. a league ERA of 4.11. He won more games (39) than he lost (37), and he did this while generally playing for below-average teams. If having played for better teams, he might have been an all-star once or twice.
Out of curiosity, I looked up pitcher-versus-batter stats for the Maddux brothers.
On Mike Maddux's pitcher-vs-batter log, you can learn that Greg had 7 PAs against Mike, with one hit, no walks, no K's, and one sacrifice.
On Greg Maddux's pitcher-vs-batter log, we learn that this is one area where Mike bettered Greg. Mike had 4 PAs against Greg, with one hit, one RBI, one K, and one sacrifice. That game was one of Mike's best starts, pitching 7 innings while giving up just 2 ER and getting the win over his brother. This for a Phillies team that would finish with 96 losses that year.