Highest Scrabble Score of Starting Batteries

A couple of nights ago, a fellow named “thedeejus” had this Reedit post on highest Scrabble score batteries. It came with this caveat

Edit: this is last names only, forgot to mention that in the title. Also, I kind of cheated and only checked to see whether they were teammates, not whether they actually played in the same game at the same time

Here at the VORG, you know we are all over the intersection of baseball and Scrabble, so we took the plunge and built upon this fellow’s work. Here are the starting pitcher and catcher combos whose names combine for the highest Scrabble scores, along with the dates of games in which they actually appeared together.

If we care that the combined battery must be able to be spelled with a common English (U.S.) Scrabble tile distribution, then we need to go back to 1943, when Cubs pitcher Ed Hanyzewski teamed up with catcher Clyde McCullough. Their last names totaled a record 52 points, and they appeared in six games together that season, as follows:

If we don’t care that the combined battery must be able to be spelled with a common English (U.S.) Scrabble tile distribution, then we only need to go back to 2015, when Braves pitcher Mike Foltynewicz paired with catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Their last names totaled a record 59 points, and they appeared in ten games together that season (and the game this past Monday, not shown in the following table):

Finally, if we don’t care if one or both of the names cannot be spelled with a common English (U.S.) Scrabble tile distribution, then we have a record 65 points totaled by Javier Vazquez and A.J. Pierzynski in multiple starts across 2006-8.