Alex Cobb, the Rays’ young right-hander, has made an impressive start to his major-league career. Among active starters with 300 career IP, Cobb is one of only 11 pitchers with a career HR/9 below 0.75 and a SO/BB ratio above 2.5. His .641 career winning percentage ranks second in that group, behind only Lance Lynn‘s mark of .654.
Cobb also authored a game start that is unique among all major league starts of the past 5 seasons. What is that start and why is it so unusual?
Hint: Prior to Cobb’s start, there had been 6 other such games in this century (since 2000). There were 13 such games for 1990-99, 44 for 1980-89 and 110 for 1970-79.
It appears I’ve stumped the panel, for a change. The unusual thing about Cobb’s game is that his game score was less than the number of batters he faced. Add in 8 innings pitched and it’s the only such game since 2008. With long starts becoming as rare as double-headers, and almost every pitcher usually able to register at least a handful of strikeouts (a big part of game score), these games are really getting scarce. The other matching games are after the jump.
Here are the only other games of this century with 8 innings pitched and a game score lower than the number of batters faced.
| Rk | Player | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | App,Dec | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | Pit | Str | GSc | BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Randy Johnson | 2008-06-20 | ARI | MIN | L 2-7 | CG 8 ,L | 8.0 | 11 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 112 | 74 | 31 | 34 |
| 2 | Jake Westbrook | 2006-08-03 | CLE | BOS | W 7-6 | GS-8 ,W | 8.0 | 15 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 118 | 77 | 28 | 38 |
| 3 | Carlos Silva | 2006-04-18 | MIN | LAA | L 2-8 | GS-9 ,L | 8.2 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 109 | 78 | 28 | 37 |
| 4 | Mark Buehrle | 2004-09-20 | CHW | MIN | L 2-8 | GS-8 ,L | 8.0 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 112 | 72 | 34 | 35 |
| 5 | Josh Fogg | 2003-06-14 | PIT | TBD | W 12-9 | GS-9 ,W | 8.1 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 106 | 69 | 33 | 38 |
| 6 | Paul Byrd | 2002-09-09 | KCR | CHW | L 6-10 | GS-8 ,L | 8.0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 112 | 74 | 23 | 35 |
If you’re wondering, yes that was the only 8 inning, one strikeout game of Randy Johnson’s career. His previous low of two strikeouts was an ND against Cleveland way back in 1994. Johnson’s longest previous start with one strikeout was even further back – 6 innings in a 1989 loss to the Orioles, though he did have two 6 inning starts with no strikeouts (a W and an ND), both for the Yankees, in 2005 and 2006.
