Fewest Pitches by a Winning Starter
Posted by Raphy on December 8, 2008
In honor of Greg Maddux retiring I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this list. Over the years Maddux has been known for for being dominant, economical with his pitches, and sometimes quick to leave a game.
Here are the games over the last ten years in the which the fewest pitches were thrown by a starter who recorded a win.
Cnt Player Date Tm Opp GmReslt App,Dec IP H R ER BB SO HR **Pit** Str GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP ERA +----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+-------+---+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+ 1 Greg Maddux 2003-09-21 ATL FLA W 8-0 GS-5 ,W 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 43 29 65 16 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 2 John Smoltz 2005-05-06 ATL HOU W 9-4 GS-5 ,W 5 2 1 1 0 2 0 46 36 61 17 17 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.80 3 Greg Maddux 2008-09-27 LAD @SFG W 2-1 GS-6 ,W 6 2 1 1 0 2 1 47 38 66 19 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1.50 4 Greg Maddux 2002-05-31 ATL @CIN W 7-0 GS-5 ,W 5 2 0 0 1 2 0 51 36 64 17 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0.00 5 Greg Maddux 2002-09-27(1) ATL @NYM W 3-1 GS-5 ,W 5 5 1 1 0 4 0 53 40 57 18 17 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1.80 6 Masato Yoshii 2002-04-16 MON CHC W 8-4 GS-5 ,W 5 3 1 1 1 1 0 54 34 57 18 17 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1.80 7 Edgar Gonzalez 2007-09-16 ARI @LAD W 6-1 GS-5 ,W 5 6 1 1 1 1 1 55 37 51 18 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1.80 8 Wandy Rodriguez 2005-08-30 HOU CIN W 5-2 GS-5 ,W 5 4 1 1 1 4 0 55 38 58 19 18 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.80 9 Chris Sampson 2008-07-05 HOU @ATL W 6-1 GS-5 ,W 5 2 1 1 0 2 1 56 36 61 17 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.80 10 Rocky Biddle 2004-07-10 MON PIT W 4-0 GS-5 ,W 5 2 0 0 1 3 0 56 35 65 17 14 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0.00
4 out of 5 ain't bad.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Can you repeat this with complete games?
December 9th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
For the last decade:
Aaron Cook is the king of the micro-pitch 9 inning complete game.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/qBhx
Here are the leaders for complete games of any length:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/JepE
Here are the leaders in 9+ inning CG with less than 90 pitches.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/MsFv
December 10th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Thanks
December 11th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Raphy, how did you generate this list? When I try to duplicate it with PI, I get a lot of pitchers with very low pitch counts because the data did not have pitch counts for many of the AB's. Did you somehow filter out those games, or is it just that all the games in the last 10 years have complete pitch counts?
December 11th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Whiz you are correct. Earlier pitch counts are usually not recorded. One of the PI tools suggests only using pitch counts after 2000. The following list seems to suggest a good number of pitch counts as far back as 1988.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/HJUF
However, you do get some weird results before 2000. Therefore, I figured a decade would be a good time frame.
By weird, I mean things like this:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199807290.shtml
Check out Steve Woodard's pitch total from this game in 1998.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Weird. I knew the pitch counts for older games were sporadic, but I had no idea some games show partial counts. That's sort of misleading -- might be better to just omit it entirely.