Most consecutive appearances without a win
Posted by Andy on July 21, 2007
Here's a very simple search with interesting results. I went to the Pitching Streak Finder, and simply entered W = 0, meaning to find the longest streak of games pitched in without any wins. Obviously this includes no-decisions, and is 1951-present.
I would never have guessed the top name on the list: John Smoltz.
In fact, most of the top 10 are closers:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ John Smoltz 2002-08-21 2005-04-21 153 0 6 4 0 0 130 101 183 151 48 45 30 199 13 2.21 0 8 0 ATL Jesse Orosco 1998-07-22 2002-06-03 151 0 4 0 0 0 34 3 81.2 76 44 40 50 87 11 4.41 4 4 1 BAL-STL-LAD Rob Murphy 1989-09-23 1992-06-09 145 0 8 0 0 0 49 12 130 154 74 65 65 102 14 4.50 2 10 0 BOS-SEA-HOU Ricardo Rincon 1997-07-17 1999-08-08 128 0 8 0 0 0 41 14 118 99 57 46 57 108 13 3.51 2 4 2 PIT-CLE Mike Henneman 1994-04-18 1996-09-27 125 0 12 0 0 0 108 63 122 127 67 59 46 102 12 4.35 4 14 0 DET-HOU-TEX Vic Darensbourg 1998-04-01 2000-04-18 123 0 8 0 0 0 17 1 110.1 106 67 65 56 95 9 5.30 5 5 3 FLA Mike Myers 1999-07-02 2001-04-12 120 0 2 0 0 0 30 1 68.2 46 20 20 34 63 7 2.62 2 2 0 MIL-COL Dennis Eckersley 1995-09-13 1997-09-03 118 0 12 0 0 0 101 65 109.1 117 52 48 14 90 17 3.95 6 2 0 OAK-STL Rob Murphy 1987-09-28 1989-07-01 116 0 9 0 0 0 42 6 135.2 118 49 43 57 123 6 2.85 2 5 1 CIN-BOS Tom Henke 1986-09-03 1988-07-17 116 0 9 0 0 0 99 59 150.1 110 45 43 41 183 12 2.57 1 6 1 TOR
Of course, this is mainly an artifact of how the managers used their closers. These guys were probably rarely brought into tie games (and maybe never brought into games where their team was behind) so there was simply no statistical way of earning a win, other than allowing the lead to slip away and then having their own offense come back in the next half-inning (known as vulturing.) Note that Rob Murphy made the list twice, with his first streak of 116 games ending in July of 1989 and his next streak of 145 games starting later that year in September.
You might remember Anthony Young had 27 consecutive losses. On the above list, he ranks 93rd overall in total number of appearances, but #1 overall with the 27 losses. Young's line for that streak was:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony Young 1992-04-24 1993-07-24 79 0 27 19 1 0 37 16 183.1 200 110 89 61 107 14 4.37 2 3 3 NYM
Actually, not a bad line, and certainly not worthy of 27 losses.
Now here's a funny coincidence. If you restrict the list to where the appearances are as a starter only, here's what you get:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Matt Keough 1978-09-06 1979-08-08 28 0 18 28 5 0 0 0 167 213 121 101 76 95 17 5.44 5 13 1 OAK Anthony Young 1992-04-14 1994-05-01 27 0 17 27 1 0 0 0 153 183 100 85 47 105 16 5.00 1 4 3 NYM-CHC Bob Miller 1960-09-24 1962-09-23 27 0 15 27 0 0 0 0 135.1 158 104 88 64 83 18 5.85 4 8 1 STL-NYM Matt Young 1991-05-25 1993-06-02 24 0 13 24 1 0 0 0 108.2 133 91 84 67 76 13 6.96 3 6 1 BOS-CLE John D'Acquisto 1976-08-02 1978-09-23 24 0 6 24 0 0 0 0 90.2 95 66 56 80 77 5 5.56 3 10 1 SFG-STL-SDP Matt Beech 1996-08-13 1997-08-07 22 0 11 22 0 0 0 0 116.1 139 87 84 52 107 23 6.50 6 2 1 PHI Carl Morton 1975-09-10 1976-07-18 22 0 8 22 1 0 0 0 124 156 77 63 50 38 10 4.57 3 1 2 ATL Fred Talbot 1967-07-16 1969-06-15 22 0 14 22 1 0 0 0 109 110 65 52 49 58 10 4.29 4 1 0 NYY-SEP
That 27 for Anthony Young is a red herring, because it sounds like those 27 straight losses. But really, during Young's record streak, he had a smaller streak of 27 straight starts without a win, comprising 17 losses. That was just part of his larger streak, where he also made appearances out of the bullpen.