On tonight’s Mets broadcast, Gary Cohen mentioned that the Nationals currently feature the National League leader in wins (Max Scherzer, with 12) and the National League leader in losses (Tanner Roark, with 11). He later noted that the last team to have such a distinction at the end of the season was the 1988 Minnesota … Read more
Late in Monday night’s 2-0 Mets victory over Miami, the Mets’ announcers mentioned that New York was using its sixth pitcher of the evening. Now generally speaking, nine-inning shutouts SHOULD require fewer pitchers than games where a team gives up some runs. So the six-pitcher shutout got the VORG wondering if the explosion in relief … Read more
MLB Advanced Media stats guru Cory Schwartz tweeted out this gem: Shohei Ohtani has made 4-of-6 starts (67%) on Sundays this year; since MLB.COM started in 2001, only six SP’s have started 10+ games in a season w/ 50%+ of them on the same day of the week; last was Yusmeiro Petit, who made 6-of-10 … Read more
Last night, Gerrit Cole faced off against Cole Hamels. I was asked if that had happened before: I’m sure can tell us the last time opposing pitchers’ names lined up like Gerrit Cole v Cole Hamels — Thickie Don April 11, 2018 Indeed it has, at least 36 times in history. In … Read more
Wednesday evening brings us the announcement of the “Cy Young Award” winner in each league. So, its now time for the VORG to announce the winners of the 2017 “Pi Young Awards”, celebrating the pitchers with ERAs closest to 3.1415927 . . . . (Here’s a refresher on the whys and wherefores of the award). … Read more
We’ve talked a lot about Three True Outcomes for batters, most recently with Joey Gallo setting a new single-season record for highest TTO%. Now lets take a look at the record-holders from the starting pitcher standpoint. Here are the top 25 highest single-season TTO marks by starters with enough innings to qualify for the ERA … Read more
Wednesday night marks the first evening of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So its time for another installment of “Sabbathmetrics”, where we determine if Jewish ballplayers perform better or worse on the Sabbath. Our subject today is lefty pitcher Ross Baumgarten. Baumgarten was a 20th-round selection of the White Sox in 1977 and made … Read more
A friend of mine asked me, after considering the 2016-7 fortunes of Rick Porcello, if anyone had ever lost 20 games the year after winning 20. This list meets that request, with the following exceptions: It doesn’t include those that won and lost 20+ games in the same season It doesn’t include those that lost … Read more