Friday night marks the beginning of Passover, the celebration of the Israelites’ freedom from slavery in Egypt. That means its time for another Sabbathmetrics post, in which we look at whether certain Jewish players performed better or worse on the Sabbath.
Our focus today is on pitcher Saul Rogovin. Rogovin’s career lasted eight seasons (1949–53, 1955-57), split between the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Philadelphia Phillies. For his major league career, he compiled a 48–48 record in 150 appearances, with a 4.06 ERA, 10 shutouts, and 388 strikeouts.
Before the 1944 season, Rogovin signed as a free agent with the Washington Senators. Prior to the start of the 1947 season, he was sent by the Senators to the Detroit Tigers. hat year Rogovin was 2–1 with a 4.50 ERA while pitching in 11 games.
Rogovin hit a grand slam in 1950 off Eddie Lopat of the NY Yankees. According to Wikipedia, the next grand slam by a Jewish pitcher was not hit until Jason Marquis hit one in 2008.
On May 15, 1951, he was traded by the Tigers to the Chicago White Sox. He led the American League with a 2.78 ERA in 1951 while playing for Detroit and Chicago. He was 4th in the league in hits allowed per 9 IP (7.85), and 5th in complete games (17) and shutouts (3). He had 12 wins and eight losses that year, with seven losses by one run and one by two runs.
In 1952 he struck out 14 Red Sox players in a 15-inning game. He was 7th in the league in innings (231 2/3; a career high), 8th in shutouts (3), 9th in games started (30) and wins, and 10th in strikeouts (121).
On December 10, 1953, he was traded by the White Sox to the Cincinnati Reds and in December 1954 he was sent from Cincinnati to the Orioles. On July 9, 1955, he was released by the Orioles and signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he had an ERA of 3.08 and a 5–3 win-loss record. He finished his pro career with the Phillies in 1957.
In terms of “Sabbath versus non-Sabbath performance”, despite having a higher H/9 and BB/9 and a lower SO/9 in non-Sabbath games, Rogovin compiled a much better earned run average and winning percentage in those games. The 1.08 difference in earned run average is one of the largest disparities seen in the “Sabbathmetrics” series to date.
| Non-Sabbath | Sabbath | |
| Games | 120 | 30 |
| W | 39 | 9 |
| L | 37 | 11 |
| Win Pct | .510 | .450 |
| Sv | 2 | 1 |
| IP | 725.3 | 158.3 |
| ERA | 3.87 | 4.95 |
| H/9 | 9.1 | 9.0 |
| BB/9 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| SO/9 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
| HR/9 | 0.9 | 0.8 |
Prior entries in the “Sabbathmetrics” series:
Jose J. Bautista
Ross Baumgarten
Bob Melvin
Art Shamsky
Scott Radinsky
Norm Sherry
Kevin Youkilis
Steve Stone
Mike Lieberthal
Ron Blomberg
Shawn Green
Al Rosen
Ian Kinsler
Sandy Koufax
My thanks to Baseball Reference for their help with some of this data.