Friend of the VORG Dave Haller had a question for me Monday afternoon …
@dianagram This seems up your alley…Rays face Robbie Ray tonight…is this first time a team’s nickname = opposing starter’s last name?
— Dave Haller (@HallerDave) June 6, 2016
Here’s the boxscore from the Ray versus Ray(s) contest.
David Branson did some research and came up with this … which partially answered what Haller had asked …
Lloyd Brown had 22 starts vs the St Louis Browns from 1928-1936.
— David Branson (@obxleatherman) June 7, 2016
I merged the Teams data file from the excellent Lahman Baseball Database with the gamelogs from Retrosheet, and this is what I found. Prior to 2015, there had only been 58 similar occasions of a starting pitcher’s last name matching either his team or the opposing team’s nickname (singular of that name). The breakout is as follows:
Visiting Starting Pitcher the same as Visiting Team Nickname: 2 times
Visiting Starting Pitcher the same as Home Team Nickname: 27 times
Home Starting Pitcher the same as Visiting Team Nickname: 25 times
Home Starting Pitcher the same as Home Team Nickname: 4 times
All 58 happened to feature a pitcher and team named “Brown” (Browns). Besides Lloyd Brown of the ’28 to ’36 St. Louis Browns, the other “Brown” pitchers are the 1914-5 Yankees’ Boardwalk Brown, the 1933 and ’35 Yankees’ Jumbo Brown (19330622, 19350822 and 19350917 games only, h/t to Richard Chester) and the 1953 Red Sox’ Hal Brown.