38 thoughts on “1913 Game Log Nuggets”

1. e pluribus munu March 5, 2016 at 1:50 am

   A lot of fun, Doug. I really enjoy getting lost in seasons on B-R, and it’s nice to have a new (old) one. But noodling with Acosta’s stats, I noticed an oddity – 5 walks in the the games listed for his 4-walk season. It made me wonder how many uncaught errors there are in the B-R data.

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2. Dr. Doom March 5, 2016 at 9:24 am

   I was SUPER sure that you must’ve missed an older battery than Griffith-Ryan, Doug. I just ASSUMED that a nearly-60-year-old Satchel Paige would’ve been in an 88+ battery… but alas, it was only 85. Thanks for that little factoid!

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   1. Richard Chester March 5, 2016 at 11:17 am

      Doug is correct. I have a reference book that confirms his finding. On 9-25-1965 Paige and Billy Bryan formed a battery that was 86 years and 9 days old.

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3. David P March 5, 2016 at 11:19 am

   That game were Griffith and Ryan were the oldest battery was the last day of the season and the Nationals certainly had fun. A book about Griffith says the following:

   “For one, the team used an unprecedented 8 pitchers. Griffith pitched a scoreless eighth inning for his only appearance of the year. He then moved to right field and into center, knocking a double in his only at bat. Griffith, age 44, and catcher Jack Ryan, 45, formed the oldest battery in major league history. Walter Johnson played center field but the comical Schaefer once again stole the show. He pitched and played right field and center. But, he hung around between second and first instead of manning his proper position in the outfield. When he did venture into the grass he either took a nap or sat atop the outfield fence while the action took place around him. At times the umpires were allowing four outs in an inning”.

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   1. David P March 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

      Here’s something I don’t understand about that Nats-Red Sox game. Mutt Willams, the Nats starting pitcher is credited with the victory even though he only pitched 4 innings. I know there’s some flexibility in awarding a win to a reliever but I thought a started HAD to throw at least 5 innings.

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      1. Richard Chester March 5, 2016 at 3:17 pm

         There was a time when a pitcher did not necessarily have to pitch 5 innings in a 9 inning game for a win. I believe the 5-inning rule became official in 1950. In the early years of the 20th century Senators had a tradition of shenanigan games on the last day of the season. In that Griffith-Ryan game Walter Johnson “pitched” to 2 batters. He lobbed the ball and each of those batters got hits and later scored earned runs. That sent Johnson’s ERA from 1.09 to 1.14 and resulted it currently being the 4th lowest seasonal ERA instead or the 3rd lowest (1901 to date).

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         1. David P March 6, 2016 at 1:28 pm

            Ah thanks Richard and Kahuna. Never knew that. Course I imagine in the distant past, the possibility of a pitcher “winning” a game in less than 5 innings was quite rare.

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         2. Doug March 6, 2016 at 1:52 pm

            Two of Lefty Grove’s 300 wins were starts of less than 5 innings, as was one of Early Wynn’s 300 wins.

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         3. Richard Chester March 6, 2016 at 2:48 pm

            A PI game search shows 264 games in which a pitcher threw less than 5 innings in a 9-inning game and was credited with a win, from 1913 through 2015. Three of them pitched all of 1 inning. The last player to get credit for such a game was Ewell Blackwell on 7-18-49 in which he pitched for 4 innings.

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            1. David P March 6, 2016 at 4:22 pm

               Looks like there were 3 games in which the starter went exactly 1 inning and got the victory. Oddly, all three involved some combination of the Browns, the Indians, and the Senators. And no starter for either team lasted more than 2 innings in those games.

               http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1192005180.shtml

               http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLA/SLA191709150.shtml

               http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS1/WS1192009010.shtml
4. Kahuna Tuna March 5, 2016 at 3:41 pm

   Richard beat me to the rule’s becoming official in 1950. Here’s a SABR article examining the events that led to passage of the rule: Origin of the Modern Pitching Win. A 1948 example of a weather-shortened game in which the starter pitched only three innings but was credited with the win is here.

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   1. Voomo Zanzibar March 6, 2016 at 6:44 pm

      I like this:
      ____________________

      On July 7, 1888, The Sporting News for the first time published win-loss records, and only then after the following disclaimer:

      It seems to place the whole game upon the shoulders of the pitcher and I don’t believe it will ever become popular even with so learned a gentleman as Mr. Chadwick to father it.
      Certain it is that many an execrable pitcher game is won by heavy hitting at the right moment after the pitcher has done his best to lose it.

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      1. e pluribus munu March 6, 2016 at 7:12 pm

         I was struck by that too, Voomo. What particularly caught my attention was the suggestion that Chadwick was already perceived as the “Father of Baseball” as early as 1888. I hadn’t realized this might be so, but upon doing some in-depth research (Wikipedia), I found he had that title a decade earlier – apparently self-bestowed. (I now always think of birtelcom as the Father of Baseball, just as I think of Hartvig in terms of his good looks.)

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5. Mike L March 5, 2016 at 4:00 pm

   Dont know where to put this, but apropos our discussion of Wilhelm and why there aren’t more knuckleballers, there’s a story on MLBTR that said former first baseman Dan Johnson has be re=signed by Tampa to learn the knuckler. Johnson is 36.
   I have to start working out again….

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   1. Hartvig March 5, 2016 at 10:02 pm

      Geez, with a little work I could be in as good shape as Wilbur Wood. I wonder if anyone would be willing to take a chance on a 60-year old?

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      1. Mike L March 5, 2016 at 11:44 pm

         Hartvig, I saw this first!. But, even with the knuckler, I’d need extra rest between appearances, so maybe Manfred would consider an 2X60 single roster exemption? Happy to share.
         I ran five miles today…

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6. Kahuna Tuna March 5, 2016 at 5:45 pm

   Walter Johnson’s 15-strikeout game and Carl Weilman‘s 14.2-inning relief appearance were in the same game. Johnson came on in the fourth inning with the game tied 6-6. Weilman had entered the game in the first after George Baumgardner gave up home runs to two of the first three Washington hitters. Baumgardner pitched a complete-game loss to the Senators in the first game of the next day’s doubleheader.

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   1. Doug March 6, 2016 at 2:03 pm

      Those 15 strikeouts by Johnson have been exceeded by a reliever only once, by another Johnson, aka the Big Unit, with 16 K’s in 7 scoreless innings of one hit ball on 7-18-2001. The latter Johnson picked up the win in beating the Padres 3-0.

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7. Mark March 5, 2016 at 9:00 pm

   This was indeed fun — A’s-Giants World Series, 76 years before the Bay Area Series! Also, I got so “lost” in the good stuff that for a moment I went to check to see if Walter Johnson won the Cy Young that year… O:-)

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8. Ken S. March 5, 2016 at 11:26 pm

   Thanks for the nice article Doug. It’s always good to have another season of old box scores. I remember being blown away by Walter Johnson’s 1913 season when I first it in the original Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia. From 1913-1927, he had 44 starts of more than 9 innings and only one of 1 inning or less. If you were to guess, how many of each of these do you think Sandy Koufax had?

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   1. e pluribus munu March 6, 2016 at 1:27 am

      Ken, I thought that was an interesting question, so I looked at Koufax 1961-66. He had 9 starts of more than 9 IP, and 6 of 1 IP less – three of those six were related to his finger injury in 1962 and occurred over a span of only four starts: the first when he had to go on the DL after the first inning of a July game, and the other two when he was brought back prematurely in September. Over these periods, Johnson pitched into extras 9% of the time; Koufax 4% of the time. (It may be worth adding that those 9 times Koufax pitched on after a game was tied at the end of nine innings was out of a total of 11 occasions, so over 80% of the time the opportunity arose, Koufax pitched into extras. I didn’t tabulate this for Johnson.)

      In Johnson’s stretch of 15 seasons he completed 77% of his starts vs. 55% for Koufax in his six seasons, while both pitched shutouts about 16% of the time (Koufax actually rounds up to 17%). I also looked at a typical year to see what league averages were like. 1917 AL: CG% = 53%; ShO% = 10%. 1963 NL: CG% = 28%; ShO = 7%. So Johnson’s CG rate was league average + 24%; Koufax +27%. (But you’d need to look at more than one year for both, since each actually bridged two different eras of pitching: Johnson 1913-1919 / 1920-1927; Koufax 1961-62 / 1963-66.)

      Obviously, Johnson was by far the greater pitcher, but on this score Koufax was probably more or less in Johnson’s league for his abbreviated peak.

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      1. Ken S. March 6, 2016 at 10:34 pm

         Thanks for the research e pluribus. I agree that Koufax in his prime was right up there with Johnson.

         Here is another amazing Koufax stat. In games of exactly 9 innings (127 starts), he was 122-3 with a 1.14 ERA.

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         1. no statistician but March 7, 2016 at 10:27 am

            Ken S:

            I don’t know how to check this myself, but my suspicion is that not just Koufax but most pitchers in the live ball era, and especially after widespread use of relievers became standard, won most of their complete games and bettered their normal ERAs by a wide margin, this last simply because all of their shutouts were CGs and they were pulled early when having a bad start. Further, since Sandy was a notoriously poor batter, I suspect that he might have been pulled for a PH before the ninth inning in more close games than, say, Bob Gibson, games in which multiple runs had already been scored.

            This isn’t to say that the records you site aren’t impressive, but they probably aren’t as remarkable as they seem.

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            1. e pluribus munu March 7, 2016 at 11:38 am

               nsb, Reviewing game records, Koufax was pulled for a pinch hitter after either 7 or 8 IP in a total of 17 games over he period 1961-66, under three times per year. For Gibson, I only spot-checked his great 1968 season. He was pinch-hit for after 7 or 8 IP five times.
         2. bstar March 7, 2016 at 8:17 pm

            Here’s what I got for Pedro Martinez in games of exactly 9 IP (40 starts), going year-by-year on his game logs: 35-3 with a 0.78 ERA.

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            1. Ken S. March 7, 2016 at 9:40 pm

               bstar:
               Yes, I got the same result for Pedro.

               See link below for list of all pitchers during Koufax’s career (1955-1966) with at least 40 starts of exactly 9 innings. It appears all pitchers do very well in this category.

               http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/share.cgi?id=g2CUe
            2. e pluribus munu March 7, 2016 at 10:32 pm

               I think nsb is basically right.

               Wondering how this would look in the case of a terrible record for a terrible team, I took a look at the figures for Roger Craig over the years 1962-63, when the Mets threatened to make the world forget the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (which, of course, were always on our minds in those days). Craig’s total record was 15-46 with a 4.14 ERA (not terrible: 92 ERA+). In games where he recorded precisely 9.0 IP, he was 8-5 with a 2.21 ERA.

               I also looked at Steve Carlton in 1972, perhaps the greatest pitching effort for a truly terrible team. Carlton went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA, but in games of exactly 9.0 IP: 23-3 and 1.03.

               Here’s the ultimate test, also a Phillie phenomenon: Contrast the records of these two pitchers, who both pitched in the period 1937-1940:

               1) W-L 34-8, ERA 2.28
               2) W-L 6-68, ERA 5.98

               Number 1 is Hugh Mulcahy in his glory years, in starts of 9.0 IP duration.
               Number 2 is his twin, Losing Pitcher Mulcahy, in all other games.

               “Losing Pitcher” is as much a slander of Hugh Mulcahy as Mr. Hyde was of Dr. Jekyll.
   2. Paul E March 10, 2016 at 6:19 pm

      Ken S.
      A little late here regarding, “it appears all pitchers do quite quite well….”
      Dean Chance: 40 – 0 in 41 games of 9IP with a 0.61 ERA Wow!!

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      1. David P March 10, 2016 at 9:04 pm

         Paul E – Looks like you only went through 1966. Chance’s career mark in 9IP games was 69-2 with 2 no decisions (no idea of ERA). Still worth a wow!

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         1. Ken S. March 11, 2016 at 10:49 am

            Yes, the report was for 1955-1966 only. I wanted to show how Koufax compared to his contemporaries. Chance’s lifetime ERA in games of exactly 9 innings was 0.85, he gave up 62 ER in 657 IP. Very impressive!

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            1. Mike L March 11, 2016 at 10:56 am

               there’s an interesting selection bias here. Games of exactly nine innings means eliminating road game complete games where the pitcher was losing through 8. It would also eliminate games where he was tied or ahead going into the bottom of the 9th, and gave up the winning run.
            2. e pluribus munu March 12, 2016 at 1:49 am

               True, Mike, and 8 IP complete games are not rarities. But it does include rare games lost in the 10th with none out — I found a couple of cases like that when I was looking up individual records.
            3. Mike L March 12, 2016 at 2:10 pm

               Thanks, EPM. So, what we are looking at are games going into the 9th in which the starting pitcher was either at home (and either ahead, tied, or behind), or ahead if he was on the road. If he’s at home, he was left in either because he was pitching well, or in rare circumstances (or stupid managers) was asked to take one for the team.
               In 1983, Ron Guidry (with the peerless Bill Martin managing) pitched 8 straight CG. Three of them were 8 inning losses. The last three were 9 inning wins, where he gave up 38 baserunners in 27 innings, and 14 earned runs. Of course, that was a Billy thing. In 1980, Rick Langford pitched a minimum of 8 innings in every single start from May 23 to the end of the season. Over a five game stretch in September, Langford gave up 64 H, 8BB, 28 ER in 44IP. Both players should have sued Billy for malpractice.
9. Paul E March 6, 2016 at 4:13 pm

   Our man Earl Hamilton followed up an 0-9 in 1917 with the Browns with a 6-0, 0.83 ERA with 6 CG for the 1918 Pirates. I imagine that hasn’t happened too often

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   1. Kahuna Tuna March 7, 2016 at 12:08 pm

      No, but Rod Beck followed up an 0-9, 35-save 1996 season (3.34 ERA) with a 7-4, 37-save 1997 season in which he posted a 3.47 ERA and made the All-Star team. Brad Lidge saved 27 games for the 2010 Phillies.

      Eight of the 17 pitchers who lost 8+ games without a win did so in their final major-league seasons. (Hamilton was the only pitcher before 1988 to go winless in eight or more decisions and pitch again in the majors!) Kevin Slowey, 0-8 with the 2011 Twins, spent 2012 in the minors but made it back to the majors with Miami in 2013. It remains to be seen how Tyler Cravy, 0-8 with the Brewers in 2015, will fare following his winless season.

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      1. Doug Post authorMarch 7, 2016 at 6:44 pm

         The player in 1988 who was the first since Hamilton to come back after an 0-8 or worse record was Neil Allen whose 1987 season is the only one in the group to have all of those losses come in starts. Allen provided 117 IP of middle relief for the Yankees in 1988.

         John Franco had an 0-8 record in 1998, his last as a primary closer. He had a fine 2.88 ERA in 1999, splitting closer duties with Armando Benitez.

         Russ Ortiz was 0-8 with an 8.14 ERA in 2006, following a 6.89 ERA in 22 starts in 2005. But, he still had almost 150 more IP for his career. Ortiz’s 66 ERA+ in 300+ IP over his last 5 seasons is second worst since 1901 over that part of a career, better only than the 64 mark by Vic Frazier from 1932 to 1939.

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   2. Doug March 7, 2016 at 2:17 pm

      Hamilton’s 1916 season is an interesting one. The Browns sold him to Detroit at the end of May, and then claimed him off waivers less than four weeks later. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

      In his short time in Detroit, Hamilton managed to pitch decently with 2.65 ERA (109 ERA+) in 5 starts and 37.1 IP. But, Detroit had themselves just claimed a pitcher off waivers (Willie Mitchell from Cleveland) so evidently decided Hamilton would have to go to make room on the roster for Mitchell.

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10. AlbaNate March 18, 2016 at 12:24 am

    This was all great fun, including the comments. I especially enjoyed seeing Bill James name on the list of top game scores.

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