Shutouts in 2009
Posted by Andy on September 4, 2009
Wow, am I the last person to realize that the Giants have already thrown 18 (EIGHTEEN!!!) shutouts this year?
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ SFG 2009 18 Ind. Games ARI 2009 12 Ind. Games CIN 2009 11 Ind. Games TEX 2009 10 Ind. Games NYM 2009 10 Ind. Games STL 2009 9 Ind. Games LAA 2009 9 Ind. Games DET 2009 9 Ind. Games SEA 2009 8 Ind. Games LAD 2009 8 Ind. Games HOU 2009 8 Ind. Games CHW 2009 8 Ind. Games BOS 2009 8 Ind. Games
Just to give you an idea of how impressive this is, here are the single-season team leaders in shutouts over the last 10 full seasons (1999-2008) plus 2009 so far:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games +---+----+-----+-------------------------+ SDP 2007 20 Ind. Games OAK 2002 19 Ind. Games SFG 2009 18 Ind. Games LAD 2003 17 Ind. Games BOS 2002 17 Ind. Games DET 2006 16 Ind. Games BOS 2008 16 Ind. Games SFG 2000 15 Ind. Games SEA 2003 15 Ind. Games LAD 2002 15 Ind. Games FLA 2005 15 Ind. Games ATL 2002 15 Ind. Games
This year's Giants already have the 3rd-most shutouts on this list and have a decent shot to break the record just by keeping pace.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Even though the 2007 Padres had 20 team shutouts, they were one of only 10 teams that year to not have a single pitcher throw a complete game shutout: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/bdgxR
In case you are wondering, only 2 Giants have shutouts this year: Tim Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez.
September 4th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
To put this in a little perspective, Alexander threw 16 complete game shutouts in 1916.
September 7th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
And to put that in a little perspective, back in 1916 Pete Alexander started 45 games, completing 38 of them, and pitched 389 innings (including 3 relief appearances). You won't find modern starters pitching that often or that long. In 1916 there were 682 complete games pitched among the 612 NL games. (Meaning that in more than half the games, at least one of the two starters pitched a CG.) There were also 140 team shutouts in 1916 (an average of 17.5 per team), all but 7 of which were complete game shutouts. In other words, you're talking about a completely different era, so the comparison to Alexander has little relevance.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Minor correction to Tomepp's post: on average, at least 1 starter in EVERY game (not half of the games) threw a CG, right? Otherwise we'd end up with about 300 CGs for the year. Or both starters threw CGs for half of the games played. But not 1 starter for more than half of the games...