Using 11+ Pitchers In One Game
Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 11, 2010
The Texas Rangers used 11 pitchers in one game last night.
It was the first time since 2007 that one team used 11 pitchers in one game. It's not something that happens very often. Here's the list of all teams, since 1973, to use 10+ pitchers in one game:
| Rk | Tm | Opp | Date | #Matching | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TEX | NYY | 2010-09-10 | 11 | |
| 2 | STL | PHI | 2007-09-18 | 11 | |
| 3 | SEA | TEX | 1992-09-25 | 11 | |
| 4 | TEX | BOS | 1993-09-01 | 10 | |
| 5 | STL | PIT | 2007-09-30 | 10 | |
| 6 | STL | NYM | 2010-04-17 | 10 | |
| 7 | SDP | ARI | 2009-06-07 | 10 | |
| 8 | PHI | NYM | 2004-09-11 | 10 | |
| 9 | NYY | TOR | 2007-09-22 | 10 | |
| 10 | HOU | CHC | 1995-09-28 | 10 | |
| 11 | DET | CHW | 1998-09-14 | 10 | |
| 12 | COL | ATL | 2000-08-22 | 10 | |
| 13 | COL | SDP | 2007-10-01 | 10 | |
| 14 | COL | CHC | 2006-09-30 | 10 | |
| 15 | COL | SDP | 2007-09-07 | 10 | |
| 16 | CIN | SDP | 2008-05-25 | 10 | |
| 17 | CHC | HOU | 2006-08-15 | 10 | |
| 18 | CHC | COL | 2006-09-30 | 10 | |
| 19 | BAL | NYY | 2004-09-12 | 10 | |
| 20 | ATL | WSN | 2008-09-07 | 10 | |
| 21 | ATL | PHI | 2003-09-27 | 10 | |
| 22 | ARI | COL | 2006-09-16 | 10 |
.
September 11th, 2010 at 8:55 am
First time since 2007?
Your list includes a Cardinals-Mets game on April 17, 2010, where the box score shows the Cards using 11 pitchers. Why do you not include that one, and say the Rangers are the first team to use 11 pitchers since last April? 🙂
September 11th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I think you need to count again Len - the Cards only have 10 pitchers in that boxscore. I'm surprised that game didn't have more than 10 pitchers though, since the Cards finished with two position players as pitchers.
September 11th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Len
If you want to start a baseball blog, and can do it better than Steve (as well as Andy, Sean and the rest) by all means go ahead and do so. I suppose there exists a remote possibility that yours could be reasonable equal to this one. Of course you may want to work on your counting skills first.
Until then, I prefer this blog.
September 11th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Ah, those September callups.
Only 5 of the 22 games on the list were pre-September. And of the pre-September ones, they lasted an average of 17 innings. None less than 12 innings.
The Rangers-Yankees went X-innings, though not that long so..... no real surprises on the list.
No self-respecting manager is going to burn through his whole pitching roster in one pre-callup game, no matter how many innings it goes.
The interesting one, in my view, is the Mets-Cardinals game from this year. Why did both managers perceive an April win as so important in this extended chess match?
September 11th, 2010 at 10:30 am
@3
Bill, why so snarky to Len? I've fired off a post in here before, only to say "oops" after.
Andy referred to this in another discussion. No need to be rude to someone when they make a mistake.
September 11th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Neil @4,
La Russa did not perceive the game as overly important and thus went to two position players as pitchers in the latter stages of the game. In New York however there was a Jerry Manuel getting fired watch after every Mets loss at that point of the season. The Mets followed this with and very good home stand which quieted the talk, but at the time Manuel was managing for his job.
September 11th, 2010 at 10:40 am
@4 Neil
as @2 sorta alluded to, St. Louis did go through their bullpen, but the last 3 innings were pitched by position players, as LaRussa didn't want to 'burn through' his pen/starters. Only one of the relievers pitched more than 2 innings and he went 2.1. So although everyone was used, no one really pitched more then they could have (it seems). What I mean is, you don't see a guy or two just left out there to eat innings....
It's a tough situation, you don't want to lose, or just give up the game, but then again you don't want to destroy your bullpen.
September 11th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Sorry Evan.....
September 11th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Thank you, Evan and Thomas.... It would have helped if I had checked the box. Even Jose Canseco pitched a few times didn't he.
"Pitcher" doesn't always mean pitcher. I had forgotten that position players are sometimes used in non-blowout games.
Now that would make for an interesting study.... What "position" player was brought in the most number of times as a pitcher? And in what situaion? Massive blowout or extended game?
September 11th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Wow, Darren Oliver pitched for Tex both last night and in the 9/1/93 (his mlb debut) 10 pitcher game vs. the Red Sox
September 11th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
@9 ("What "position" player was brought in the most number of times as a pitcher?")
Neal L -- I've tried to search that with the Play Index, but it's too labor-intensive. Whether I do a Game Finder or Season Finder, those with a significant number of games at both pitcher and another position always turn out to be legitimate "two-way players" -- guys who had at least one year when pitching was a significant role for them, not an afterthought.
In order to search this efficiently with the Play Index, we'd need at least one more filter -- e.g., a way to cap the number of pitching games.
I do know that OF Doug Dascenzo pitched in 4 games for the Cubs in 1990-91, finishing all 4 without allowing a run. All 4 games were blowout losses.
September 11th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Vance Law (IF) pitched in 7 games, all blowout losses, finishing all 7, allowing 4 runs (3 ER) in 8 IP, with 2 Ks and 3 walks. His daddy must have been proud.
September 11th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
This is off topic, but anyway:
The Giants used 6 pitchers in last night's 1-0, 9-inning win over San Diego.
The last time a team used more than 6 pitchers in a 9-inning shutout was Sept. 18, 2004, a 2-0 win by Texas over the Angels in which Buck Showalter used 7 pitchers.
In last night's game, starter Jonathan Sanchez went 5 IP on 1 hit but 7 walks; he threw 44 balls out of 88 pitches. Brian Wilson got the last 5 outs for the save.
It was the 50th 1-0 game in MLB this year -- 8 more than any year since 1992.
September 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
@11 @12 @13
John A, didn't mean to suggest that you should do the research yourself. Thank you for trying.
Agreed that the database should have one more filter to make minor trivia searches possible.
"The Giants used 6 pitchers in last night's 1-0, 9-inning win over San Diego."
This is really interesting. What about the maximum number of pitchers used in a 9-inning game? And sorted to as how late in the season the multi-pitcher game occurred? Only in a pennant race, after callups, would the maximum occur, I think.
"It was the 50th 1-0 game in MLB this year -- 8 more than any year since 1992."
It is the year of the pitchers..... who knows why.
September 11th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I watched that 2009 Pads/Dbacks game from about the 7th inning on - 18 innings settled by a Mark Reynolds HR. The final "pitcher" for the Padres was Josh Wilson, a backup infielder who had been released by the DBacks earlier in the year. Just for fun, he had pitched in a game earlier in the year FOR the Dbacks and then pitched against them in that 18 inning game. He also threw an inning for the Rays in 2007 so he has appeared on the mound for 3 teams. . .
One other note on that game - the DBacks' bullpen threw 9 innings of no-hit ball to close the game. . . .
September 11th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Hey, Neal L. -- From 1920 through yesterday, the most pitchers used in a 9-inning, non-September game was 8, last done on August 2, 2006 by the Cardinals in a 16-8 loss to the Phils. They also used pitcher Jason Marquis as a PH, though he did not pitch.
It was the 6th straight loss for the Cards, who nonetheless maintained a 3.5-game lead in the NL Central. The Cards had a 7-game lead with 13 games left, then lost 7 straight and 8 of 9, as their lead shrunk to a half-game (over Houston) with 4 games to go, including a makeup game (Houston had 3 games left). But the Astros dropped 2 of 3, and the Cards won 2 of 3 to clinch the division at 83-78, so they didn't need to play the makeup game. St. Louis went on to win the World Series, setting a non-strike-year record for the fewest regular-season wins by a WS winner.
September 11th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
... but to answer the question Neal actually asked:
The most pitchers used in any 9-inning game (1920-present) was 10, done 3 times, twice in 2007:
-- One was a meaningless game on the last day of the season between the Cards and Pirates in Pittsburgh, both long since eliminated. Tony LaRussa managed to use 10 pitchers while allowing just 5 runs; he made 5 mid-inning pitching changes in the 5th through 8th innings. The Pirates crowd must have showered him with love.
-- The other was a Sept. 7, 2007 game between the Padres and Rockies in Denver, a game with actual pennant-race implications. The NL West race was wide open, with just 5 games separating 1st-place LA and the 4th-place Rockies; the Pads were a game back in 2nd, but had lost 2 straight. Colorado started Elmer Dessens (must have been an emergency), who lasted just 2.1 IP. The game was close until the bottom of the 8th, when the Rox broke it open with 5 runs en route to a 10-4 win. As you may recall, Arizona went on to the win the division, the Dodgers faded to 4th, and the Pad and Rox tied for the wild-card, setting up a 1-game playoff, which Colorado won, 9-8, with a 3-run rally off Trevor Hoffman in the bottom of the 13th. (The Rox used 10 pitchers in that game, too; both times, Ramon Ortiz got the win.)
September 11th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
(Correction: Ramon Ortiz did win the playoff game, but merely finished the previous 10-pitcher game.)
September 11th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
On a closely related note, this game (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN199309071.shtml) holds the record for most pitchers not recording an out with 6 (4 for stl, 2 for cin). St Louis was one of 4 teams ever to have 4 pitchers record 0 outs in a game, most recently by Seattle in 1998 (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199804100.shtml) in a game where their starter went 8 innings then they used 4 relievers who did not record an out in the 9th and lost the game!
September 12th, 2010 at 9:16 am
@11 @12
John A, thanks for doing the legwork. Vance Law and Doug Dascenzo, hmmm.....
@17
What the heck was LaRussa thinking in that Pirates-Cardinals game? Figures it would be La Russa! At least all 1500 Pirates' spectators had plenty of chances to do their trips to the beer concessions.{lame attempt at humor}
Again, though, John A, as expected, both games were with (presumably) expanded pitching rosters so the next-day's starter was spared an appearance.
September 12th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Sorry.... Cardinals game was last of season....oops!
September 13th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
@19
Thomas -- Nice work on those "0 outs" games. That Cards-Reds game finished 14-13, with a total of 36 hits and 13 walks, and took 3:41 to play 9 innings. The last 5 half-innings saw 8 mid-inning pitching changes ... and it was the first game of a doubleheader.
In his Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James floated a few rules changes to deal with unexpected and unwelcome developments in the game. To counter the explosion in pitching changes, he proposed that mid-inning pitching changes be restricted to (a) one "freebie" per game, and otherwise (b) after the pitcher who started the inning has given up a run.(FN)
Mind you, James wrote this at least 10 years ago, and the trend has only gotten worse. At 10-year intervals, here are the average number of 5-pitcher games per team per season, counting only games of 9 innings or less:
1980 -- 7.3
1990 -- 13.5
2000 -- 27.6
2010 -- 34.5 (prorated to full season)
Or to put it another way ... In 1980, teams averaged just 1.2 regulation *wins* while using 5+ pitchers. This year, the prorated average is 16.3 such wins.
Only a fraction of this enormous change can be laid to the difference in scoring levels -- 4.29 RPG in 1980, 4.41 RPG in 2010, a difference of 2.7%. And some can be blamed on the fact that starting pitchers don't go as deep as they used to -- but that evolution has been grossly exaggerated by looking only at the decline in complete games. The average SP outing in 1980 did last longer than the 2010 average, but by how much? Take a guess. Ready? Here's that earth-shattering change: Exactly one out. (6.33 IP in 1980, 6.00 IP in 2010.)
The rest of the explosion in pitching changes is due to ... what? Mass hysteria?
P.S. For whatever it's worth, the average relief outing in 1980 lasted 1.7 IP; the 2010 average is 1.0.
__________
Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=3uSbqUm8hSAC&pg=PA811&lpg=PA811&dq=bill+james+historical+baseball+abstract+%2B+%22pitching+change%22&source=bl&ots=1ks5ke8Kyf&sig=MaavNxLHmmDgJ1ndCQTACYwx6yQ&hl=en&ei=YmOOTPOGIcOclgfJoa3mAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pitching%20change&f=false
September 13th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
@22
John A, at risk of under-appreciating your research, aren't there two factors at work here?
Managers, and the pitching coaches they hire, are under increasing pressure to appear to be micro-managing the game. So they make more pitching changes more than ever before. Off the top of my head, Tony La Russa comes to mind.
The ever-increasing specialization of relief pitchers.... RH set-up man, LH long relief, etc as well as the use of statistics.