Fill-in-the-Blanks: False Starts
Posted by Raphy on December 21, 2009
One of the most intriguing aspects of PI is the ability to find obscure oddities that have occurred throughout the history of baseball (or at least in the retrosheet era). As intriguing as this is, it can also be quite maddening, as it if often difficult to find the story behind the numbers. Today I present you with one such case and ask for your help in filling in the blanks.
When a starter takes the mound, it is rare (actually less rare than I would have guessed - around 1 in every 353 starts since 1954) for him to leave without retiring a batter. I assume that there are basically four reasons a starter would leave without retiring a batter. The most obvious is ineffectiveness. However, a starter can also be pulled for health reasons, a long rain delay or an ejection. I guess that it is also possible (although highly unusual) for a manager to start a pitcher just to face a hitter or two to gain a match-up advantage.
Since 1954, there have been 4 games in which both starting pitchers failed to retire batter.
| Rk | Tm | Opp | Date ▾ | #Matching | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CIN | SDP | 1989-09-21 | 2 | |
| 2 | STL | SDP | 1977-06-07 | 2 | |
| 3 | PHI | SFG | 1961-06-29 (1) | 2 | |
| 4 | WSH | BOS | 1956-08-12 | 2 |
.
Here are the pitching lines for the starters of those games:
SD@CIN 9/21/89
San Diego Padres IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF D Rasmussen 0 5 5 5 0 0 1 4.42 5
Cincinnati Reds IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF J Armstrong 0 3 5 5 2 0 1 4.78 5
STL @ SD 06/07/77
San Diego Padres IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF J D'Acquisto 0 1 2 2 3 0 0 5.68 4
St. Louis Cardinals IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF
L Dierker, L (1-2) 0 2 2 2 0 0 0 3.79 2
SF@PHI 06/29/61
San Francisco Giants IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF
B O'Dell 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 4.91 1
Philadelphia Phillies IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF
K Lehman 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 3.30 2
BOS @ WAS 08/12/1956
Boston Red Sox IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF
W Nixon, L (6-5) 0 3 2 2 1 0 0 4.53 4
Washington Senators IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA BF D Stone 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 6.14 3
Looking at these starts, it is natural to wonder why these pitchers were all pulled so soon.
The 1989 game featured 2 pitchers that failed to retire 5 batters. I'll chalk that up to ineffectiveness.
The game from 1977 featured 2 pitchers who were pitching with short leashes. John D'Acquisto was bounced between the bullpen and the starting rotation all season long. Yet, even when he started, he didn't usually last too long. In his 14 starts that season D'Acquisto averaged less than 3 and 1/3 innings. Meanwhile, Dierker was the in the middle of a season in which he battled ineffectiveness due to lingering injuries.
The 1961 game was the first game of double-header which was started by 2 relievers. Newspaper reports at the time didn't seem to think much of the fact that the pitchers were pulled and it is possible that this was their managers' strategy all along.
I am less certain about the game from 1956. Nixon had pitched 11 innings 5 days before and I assume that manger Pinky Higgins decided that Nixon didn't have it that day. Stone was another reliever/starter. His start was aborted after 3 batters. I am not sure of the reason, but if you are a New York Times subscriber, you might be able to tell us why.
December 21st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The Times article about the 1956 game only explains that Nixon gave up a walk, a triple and two singles before being pulled without getting an out. Nothing in the article to explain why Stone was pulled.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Oh well. Thanks Birtelcom.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
I believe there have also been cases where the manager named a different starter on the lineup card and then replaced him to start the top of the first inning. It was done for purposes of deception, i.e. so the opposing team wouldn't know who the real starter was. I think there have also been cases when the visiting team scored a bunch of runs in the top of the 1st and pinch-hit for their own pitcher, then sent in a different guy to start the bottom of the first. Not sure why.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Have you noticed that Alvin Dark managed two of these games? SF 1961 and San Diego 1977
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Andy, those cases wouldn't seem legal, since a pitcher has to face at least one batter. I don't know at what point a starting pitcher assignment is allowed to be changed. Obviously if a guy gets hurt right before a game (a la Mike Hampton a couple years ago), you would need to replace him. But simply announcing one pitcher and then actually starting another just to gain a platoon advantage can't be kosher.
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I remember a game during Dennis Cook's first stint with the Phillies in which he pinch hit for the starting pitcher rather early in the game and then stayed in the game as the new pitcher. I thought I remembered the game being against Pittsburgh (when they were good and had Bobby Bonds' son and Kyle Drabek's father) and also being on in the daytime on a day when I was home from work. Because I had a new job and wasn't eligible for vacation yet, it would have had to have been a weekend or holiday day game.
It turns out I was right about the opposing team but wrong about the time of day. It was a Friday night game. Here's the link to the game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT199007270.shtml
Cook pinch hit in the top of the second with the score tied, 2-2. Although the Phillies did not have much luck against their cross-state rivals back then, the Phillies won that game, with Cook getting the W.
When I first saw the title of this blog entry, I thought it was going to be about games that got underway called before they were official. I don't know if there is a record of such "false starts", but Retrosheet does keep a list of home runs that were lost as a result of the game never becoming official. This list helped me find the date of a rained-out Detroit Tigers at Washington Senators game I remembered from my childhood (May 17, 1963).
I remember following Nolan Ryan's quest of the single season strikeout record late in the 1973 season. One day, I saw in the paper that the game he was supposed to have started the night before was "ppd. rain". I was suprised that he didn't start the Angels' next game. Several days later, I found out by chance that this was because he had pitched the night before in a game that was called before it became official. I was concerned that this lost start, including the loss of any strikeouts that had occurred in that non-game, would jeopardize his breaking the record, but I believe he did break it after all.
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
In a 1917 game, Ruth was ejected after walking the first batter. Shore replaced him, erased the baserunner, and completed the game without allowing another.