Both Teams Throwing Under 100 Pitches
Posted by Raphy on February 18, 2011
This past June 2nd the Indians and Tigers played a tight low scoring game in a nifty 1 hour and 44 minutes. Both Fausto Carmona and Armondo Galaraga were on and the Tigers, behind a solo shot from Miguel Cabrera and another 2 late inning runs, beat the Indians 3-0.
One significant part of the game was that neither team threw 100 pitches. In fact it was the first non-shortened game since 2007 and just the 12th since 2000 to feature less than 100 pitches from both teams. Here are the others:
| Rk | Tm | Opp | Date | #Matching |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DET | CLE | 2010-06-02 | 2 |
| 2 | SDP | LAD | 2007-04-28 | 2 |
| 3 | MIL | CHC | 2006-07-06 | 2 |
| 4 | BAL | SEA | 2005-05-25 | 2 |
| 5 | KCR | TOR | 2005-05-10 | 2 |
| 6 | COL | CIN | 2004-05-20 | 2 |
| 7 | KCR | DET | 2002-07-24 | 2 |
| 8 | LAD | COL | 2002-06-25 | 2 |
| 9 | FLA | SFG | 2001-08-15 | 2 |
| 10 | CHC | CIN | 2001-05-24 | 2 |
| 11 | NYM | ATL | 2001-04-11 | 2 |
| 12 | LAD | ARI | 2001-04-10 | 2 |
Some observations about the games:
- Two of the games (#9, #11) featured a bottom of the ninth. Only #11 consisted of 54 outs.
- Not surprisingly, Greg Maddux started in 3 of these games for 3 different team. It is also not surprising that he didn't finish any of them.
- The fastest game here was #7, which was played in 1:41.
- The most total runs scored in any of these games is 5 (#2). The Padres beat the Dodgers 3-2 in April of '07.
February 18th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
That was the "perfect game", by the way. My favorite type of game to watch too.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
i think these sub-100 pitch games were common in the DBE. wouldn't know how to look it up though.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Really? You misspelled Armando Galarraga's first name and his last name?
February 18th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
#2/... Jason Says: "i think these sub-100 pitch games were common in the DBE. wouldn't know how to look it up though."
Jason, if by DBE, you mean "dead ball era", I don't see _how_ you could look it up. The box scores then did not include pitch counts, so unless a reporter attending a game actually kept a pitch count and wrote it in his game story, that information is forever lost to history.
You could do an estimate of total pitches based on the box score, but that kind of defeats the purpose...
February 18th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Was that Miguel Cabrera solo shot you mentioned whiskey or a homerun?
February 18th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
In #11, the 54-out game, Mets pitcher Rick Reed actually had a 3-pitch 8th inning (the hard way: GO, 1B, GDP). Is there any way to search for other instances of this?
February 18th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Remarkably, only one of those games features two Cy Young winners: The #5 game -- KCR @ TOR -- featuring a young Zack Greinke versus a (youngish) Roy Halladay. (I know Greinke didn't win his until 2009, but still.) And both threw complete games, with Greinke taking the hard-luck loss.
February 19th, 2011 at 1:38 am
BTW, the winning pitcher in that hour-and-forty-one-minute game (#7 on the list) was the late Jose Lima, then of the Tigers, beating Paul Byrd of KC (who was 13-6 at the start of the day). Five weeks later, Lima had a 7.77 ERA and his walking papers. And who signed him out of the Atlantic League the following summer? The Royals, of course.
P.S. In the last 36 starts of his career, spanning 2005-06, Lima went 5-20 with a 7.26 ERA.
February 19th, 2011 at 2:32 am
On August 10, 1944 Red Barrett of the Boston Braves pitched a Complete game 2-0 shutout against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field:
He threw only 58 pitches:
It was the shortest Night game in MLB history 1 hour 15 minutes:
Bucky Walters of the Reds also threw a complete game against the Braves.
Unfortunately there is No Play by Play of the game to know how many Pitches Walters threw in the game., but he only gave up 6 hits, 1 Walk and 2 runs.
Barrett gave up 2 hits, NO walks.
Box of the Game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN194408100.shtml