15 Responses to “Madison Bumgarner and Very Tough Losses”

1. Bastaducci Says:
   June 10th, 2011 at 10:15 pm

   Nice to see Steve Rogers on a list. I have always felt he was the most underrated player I ever seen play.

2. John Autin Says:
   June 10th, 2011 at 11:21 pm

   @1, Bastaducci -- A hearty huzzah for Mr. Rogers, the best pitcher in baseball in 1982, and owner of a 0.68 ERA in 3 postseason starts, all wins.

3. eorns Says:
   June 10th, 2011 at 11:34 pm

   Wow, how about these splits for Abbott in '92:
   When allowing 3+ runs: 0-12, 1 ND
   When allowing 0-2 runs: 7-3, 6 ND

4. Doug Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 3:11 am

   @2.

   But, alas, Rogers took the loss in Game 5 on the '81 NLCS, relieving the starter, Ray Burris, to start the 9th inning of a 1-1 game. Rogers was pitching on 2 days rest after tossing a complete game in Game 3. Rogers made only 6 other relief appearances in just over 400 career games, including 4 in his last two decline seasons.

   There was an off-day before game 5, so all the Expos relievers were rested and ready to go. In fact, the entire bullpen had pitched less than 4 innings in the whole series. What impelled Jim Fanning to depart from form and go with Rogers, I guess we'll never know. I don't think I've ever felt as bad for a player as I did for Rogers that day.

5. Nash Bruce Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 5:57 am

   @Doug(4): wow, I was only 6, so I don't remember the Rogers '81 playoff game- I knew the result, but not the story behind the result.........

6. Thomas Court Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 7:40 am

   Speaking of tough losses... Has anyone noticed that the NHL Finals is bearing a strong resemblance to the 1960 World Series? Vancouver has won 3 games by one goal, and Boston has won their two games by a combined score of 12-1.

7. Fireworks Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 11:29 am

   Nice query John, though I wish you had used lost 2/3rds instead of lost more than 2/3rds just because we missed out on Nolan Ryan's sweet 1987 season.

   Also, people keep saying the Giants are still going to win the NLW but I get the feeling this 2011 Giants team is like the 2009 Giants team and late in the season the absence of run-scoring abilities is going to weigh on the team. Let us also remember that if the invisible nuke that went off in San Diego late last year is somehow avoided the Giants maybe don't make the postseason at all.

   Team needs bats.

8. John Autin Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 12:03 pm

   @7, Fireworks -- Just trying to keep the table to a manageable size. Including the .333 pitchers would have grown it from 30 entries to 39.

   Besides Nolan's '87, the .333 season I find most interesting is Turk Farrell with the '62 expansion Astros -- I mean, Colt .45's. Farrell had 242 IP with a 3.02 ERA and 124 ERA+, 203 Ks against 55 walks -- but won 10 and lost 20.

9. John Autin Says:
   June 11th, 2011 at 12:12 pm

   @6, Thomas Court -- So, who will be the Mazeroski of the Stanley Cup Finals? Better yet, who will be the Hal Smith -- i.e., the secret hero of that Series? Smith's 3-run HR in the bottom of the 8th turned a 7-6 deficit into a 9-7 lead and produced a WPA value of 0.636, much greater than the 0.37 or so for Maz's famous HR, which "merely" broke a tie.

   http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196010130.shtml

10. bluejaysstatsgeek Says:
    June 11th, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    @4, @5

    I remember the game well. It was a Monday afternoon and the game had been rained out the day before. It was a damp cold day. I was watching in the Student Lounge at the university. I had mixed feelings about Rogers pitching in that situation. He hadn't been used as a reliever at all that season, and they had Fryman, Reardon and Lee were all available, although Fryman had given up 4 runs in an inning's work two days earlier and Reardon had given up 3 runs in Game 1. I expected Lee. Not only had he been effective, he could also give you a lot of innings if the game when into extras.

    I remember thinking that Rogers didn't look terribly comfortable on the mound. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the difference of relieving.

    When Monday came to the plate, I thought they'd bring in one of the lefties, likely Lee. Monday never hit against lefties and if the game continued, it would be great to get him out of the game. It didn't happen.

    I think I cried.

    I'm sure Rick Monday is a fine person, but I have hated him ever since he ended my Expos' only post-season.

11. John Autin Says:
    June 11th, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    @10, BJSG re: Rogers facing Monday in '81 NLCS game 5:

    I don't know if Fanning had this data, but it seems possible that he was motivated by the head-to-head matchups between Rogers and Monday.

    To that point in time, Monday was just 10 for 64 against Rogers, with 23 Ks and 2 HRs. And Rogers generally had a low HR rate; he had allowed just 8 HRs in 188 IP that year (regular & postseason) before Monday connected.

    And maybe Fanning was overreacting to a small sample, but co-closers Fryman and Reardon had been torched in that series. Reardon had allowed 8th-inning HRs to Guerrero and Scioscia in game 1 (turning a 2-0 game into a blowout), while Fryman had a similar outing in the 9th inning of game 4, turning a 3-1 deficit into a 7-1 hole.

    Sometimes bad things just happen.

12. bluejaysstatsgeek Says:
    June 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @John Autin:

    True. Monday had not had much success against Rogers to that point in their careers, with Monday's only good year against Rogers being in 1975.

    Since this discussion, I looked at Rogers platoon splits - I don't recall seeing anyone with such nearly identical numbers. I don't know how to include a table in a post, but here's the link:

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=rogerst01&year=Career&t=p

    I guess you could use similarity scores on platoon splits to see how similar a pitcher's platoon split are, correct?

    At least the Blue Jays had the sense to name their stadium after my favourite Expo.

13. Dukeofflatbush Says:
    June 12th, 2011 at 11:51 pm

    @ JA

    Randy Johnson's 1999 season was as bad as Ryan's '87 season, although the records were markedly different.
    Johnson went ten consecutive starts (June 25-August 11) in '99, where he threw 81.1 IP, pitching 7 innigs only twice. He allowed 2 earned runs 5 times, 1 ER 3 times and 0 twice. His ERA was 1.44. He had a 5:1 K/BB. 116 SO in 81 innings. A WHIP around 1. Yet went 2-5. His team was no hit twice in a month.

14. John Autin Says:
    June 13th, 2011 at 12:10 am

    @13, Duke -- That's a great observation about Johnson in '99. Looking down his game log for that year shows that a single run support number (his was 5.12) doesn't always capture the story. You noted the 2 no-hitters against Johnson in that 10-game stretch; there were also 2 other shutouts, another game that he left with a 2-0 lead but the bullpen blew it in the 9th, a 2-1 loss, another 9th-inning blown save of a 2-run lead...

    BTW, check out the July 15 game for one of the nuttier blown saves you'll ever see:
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TEX/TEX199907150.shtml
    (Was Matt Mantei wearing a Charlie Brown shirt?)

15. John Autin Says:
    June 13th, 2011 at 12:24 am

    @ Duke -- For that matter, Johnson's 2004 season was a Cy Young-caliber campaign masked by a 16-14 record. Arizona scored 2 runs or less in 17 of his 35 starts. Johnson led the NL in ERA+. And in a league where the average ERA was 4.30, Johnson had a 3.64 ERA in his 14 losses, with 10 K/9 and a 4.52 K/BB ratio.