The preview for tonight's Boston-LosAngelesAngelsOfAnaheim game (posted on ESPN.com and provided by STATS LLC) points out that Tim Wakefield has a decision in every one of his starts so far this season. His main page agrees, citing 22 game starts, 13 wins, and 9 losses. His game log for 2007 tells more of the story, showing that he's allowed 2 or 3 ER in only 3 starts this season, allowing fewer than 2 or more than 3 in all the rest. So basically he's either on fire or gets bombed. That's how you get decisions in all of your starts.

It got me to thinking about which pitchers have made the most game starts in a season without getting a single no-decision.I started by going to the PI Pitching Season finder and listing out all games since 1957 where a pitcher has made at least 25 starts, and received at least 25 decisions, and then I listed the results ranked by most decisions. I limited it to 1957 and later because in the old days, it was very common for pitchers to finish all of their games, and thus a lot of players got zero no-decisions in a season.

But that search wasn't very productive because I got stuff like this:

  Player            **Dec** GS Year Age Tm  Lg  G  CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
++-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
  Phil Niekro          36   35 1969  30 ATL NL  40 21   4  4 23 13  .639  1 284.1 235  93  81  57 193   2.56  140 21 1143 1062 28  7   7   5  19   0  17  17  5  4  0 15  .221  .264  .320  .584   68
  Glen Hobbie          36   36 1960  24 CHC NL  46 16   4  5 16 20  .444  1 258.2 253 130 114 101 134   3.97   95 27 1118  988 36 12   7   9  12   7  19  24 13  0  0  8  .256  .329  .399  .728  105
  Warren Spahn         36   36 1959  38 MLN NL  40 21   4  3 21 15  .583  0 292   282 106  96  70 143   2.96  120 21 1203 1118 45  8   9   1  13   4  18   1  2  1  0  2  .252  .296  .363  .659   87
  Lew Burdette         32   32 1960  33 MLN NL  45 18   4  9 19 13  .594  4 275.2 277 116 103  35  83   3.36  102 19 1117 1064 41 10   7   5  12   1  30   6  3  0  0  2  .260  .287  .371  .658   84
  Marty Pattin         30   30 1973  30 BOS AL  34 11   2  3 15 15  .500  1 219.1 238 112 105  69 119   4.31   93 31  946  858 30  8   7   8   6   5  19  10  7  0  1  3  .277  .335  .439  .774  111
  Bud Daley            29   27 1961  28 TOT AL  39  9   0  4 12 17  .414  1 193.1 211 109  92  73 119   4.28   90 23  854  758 45  4   8   9   9   5  23   3  2  6  1  1  .278  .347  .439  .786  119
  Chuck Estrada        29   25 1960  22 BAL AL  36 12   1  6 18 11  .621  2 208.2 162  87  83 101 144   3.58  106 18  883  743 24  3   3  15  12  11  21  11  4  0  0  2  .218  .320  .331  .651   82
  Bud Daley            29   29 1959  26 KCA AL  39 12   2  5 16 13  .552  1 216.1 212  90  76  62 125   3.16  127 24  911  827 27  2   2  11  11   1  22   2  2  3  0  7  .256  .316  .381  .697   94
  Ron Schueler         27   27 1974  26 PHI NL  44  5   0  6 11 16  .407  1 203.1 202  91  84  98 109   3.72  102 17  882  764 40  4  18   4  14   2  23  14  9  0  3 11  .264  .350  .394  .744  110
  Turk Farrell         27   26 1963  29 HOU NL  34 12   0  5 14 13  .519  1 202.1 161  76  68  35 141   3.02  104 12  792  734 25  9   2   2  15   5   9  14 11  1  1  2  .219  .255  .327  .582   76
  Don Rudolph          26   26 1963  31 WSA AL  37  4   0  4  7 19  .269  1 174   189  98  88  36  70   4.55   81 28  745  687 22  6   3   6  10   6  14   2  3  1  0  2  .275  .314  .447  .761  117

These guys all had relief appearances (as discerned by the fact that their Games total exceed their Game Starts total) and they probably got a decision or two or three in their relief outings. You'd have to go into the came logs for each player to know for sure.

So here's a simplified search. From 1957 to present. Games in Relief = 0. Then I set GS = 40, Decisions = 40, and saw who came up (nobody). Then GS = 39, Decisions = 39, etc.

  Cnt Player            Year GR GS Dec Age Tm  Lg  G  CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+----+--+--+---+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Tim Wakefield     2007  0 22  22  40 BOS AL  22  0   0  0 13  9  .591  0 138.1 136  72  70  48  79   4.55   99 15  584  524 35  3   0   4   2   6  10  26  5  0  0  9  .260  .323  .424  .747   95 2113 1357
    1 Ryan Rupe         2002  0 15  15  27 TBD AL  15  2   0  0  5 10  .333  0  90    83  60  56  25  67   5.60   80 11  382  341 27  1   0  10   2   4   6   8  3  0  0  6  .243  .311  .425  .736   94 1424  882
    1 Jason Simontacchi 2007  0 13  13  33 WSN NL  13  0   0  0  6  7  .462  0  70.2  95  53  50  23  42   6.37   67 13  322  288 21  3   4   3   4   4   8   0  3  5  0  1  .330  .381  .559  .940  152 1119  730
    2 Jim Clancy        1977  0 13  13  21 TOR AL  13  4   1  0  4  9  .308  0  76.2  80  47  43  47  44   5.05   83  7  346  286 21  3   1   0   6   7   4   5  1  0  0  4  .280  .374  .448  .822  121
    3 Dan Larson        1976  0 13  13  21 HOU NL  13  5   0  0  5  8  .385  0  92.1  81  40  31  28  42   3.02  106  3  379  343 12  2   1   1   1   6   8  12  4  0  2  1  .236  .291  .309  .600   83
    1 Jimmy Gobble      2003  0  9   9  21 KCR AL   9  0   0  0  4  5  .444  0  52.2  56  32  27  15  31   4.61  110  8  230  207 12  1   0   4   1   3   2   5  1  0  0  1  .271  .328  .454  .782   94  831  536
    2 Tim Belcher       2000  0  9   9  38 ANA AL   9  1   0  0  4  5  .444  0  40.2  45  31  31  22  22   6.86   72  8  186  160 10  2   1   2   1   1   5   0  1  0  1  1  .281  .373  .519  .892  122  696  413
    1 Alex Fernandez    2000  0  8   8  30 FLA NL   8  0   0  0  4  4  .500  0  52.1  59  25  24  16  27   4.13  108  7  222  202  6  3   1   0   3   1   6   3  3  0  0  0  .292  .342  .455  .797  108  816  511
    2 Salomon Torres    1993  0  8   8  21 SFG NL   8  0   0  0  3  5  .375  0  44.2  37  21  20  27  23   4.03   96  5  196  160  7  0   3   1   7   1   3   5  3  0  1  3  .231  .344  .369  .713   97           
    1 Sidney Ponson     2007  0  7   7  30 MIN AL   7  0   0  0  2  5  .286  0  37.2  54  31  29  17  23   6.93   63  7  181  161 10  1   1   3   0   0   4   1  2  0  0  0  .335  .409  .540  .949  152  628  385
    2 Dwight Gooden     1994  0  7   7  29 NYM NL   7  0   0  0  3  4  .429  0  41.1  46  32  29  15  40   6.31   66  9  182  163  7  1   1   1   3   0   3  11  3  0  0  2  .282  .346  .503  .849  125
    3 Wilbur Wood       1976  0  7   7  34 CHW AL   7  5   1  0  4  3  .571  0  56.1  51  24  14  11  31   2.24  159  3  225  211 11  0   0   0   2   1   4   6  4  3  0  1  .242  .278  .336  .614   79           

7 is as low as I went. Simontacchi has an active streak, as does Ponson (who is unlikely to pitch again this year or ever in MLB.) In reality, this is kind of a silly search. A relief appearance or two shouldn't matter, plus I'm not all that sure that getting more decisions or fewer decisions is much more than a statistical oddity. Feel free to look into it more deeply if you wish.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.