Yu Darvish–yu stud! |

Here are some quick thoughts on Yu Darvish’s near-perfecto last night.

Thomas Campbell-USA TODAY Sports

First–here’s a quote from Darvish after the game, from MLB.com’s recap of the game by T. R. Sullivan.

“I think my teammates were a little more disappointed than I am,” Darvish said. “Even if I got the [perfect] game, it doesn’t translate to three to five wins. It’s still just one win. I think my teammates were more disappointed than me.”

Man, what an awesome attitude. I’m sure he’s a little disappointed, but to be so focused on the team winning, especially this early in the season, is fantastic. I wish all ballplayers thought that way.

Here, also mentioned in Sullivan’s article, are the most 10+ strikeout games within a pitcher’s first 30 career appearances (since 1916):

Rk	Player	#Matching		W	L	W-L%	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
1	Dwight Gooden	15	Ind. Games	10	3	.769	1.31	15	6	3	0	123.1	69	18	5	33	176	0.83

2	Hideo Nomo	11	Ind. Games	7	1	.875	1.12	11	4	3	0	88.1	41	11	3	23	133	0.72

3	Kerry Wood	9	Ind. Games	7	0	1.000	1.85	9	1	1	0	68.0	40	14	3	23	118	0.93
4	Yu Darvish	9	Ind. Games	6	3	.667	2.32	9	0	0	0	66.0	42	17	5	19	98	0.92

5	Herb Score	8	Ind. Games	7	1	.875	1.78	8	6	1	0	70.2	35	14	3	41	94	1.08
6	Mark Prior	8	Ind. Games	5	0	1.000	2.45	8	2	1	0	55.0	40	15	7	14	89	0.98
7	Al Downing	8	Ind. Games	7	0	1.000	1.48	8	4	3	0	67.0	36	11	2	32	91	1.01

8	Fernando Valenzuela	7	Ind. Games	7	0	1.000	0.72	7	6	4	0	62.2	38	5	0	18	75	0.89
9	Tom Griffin	7	Ind. Games	6	1	.857	1.49	7	5	3	0	60.1	37	10	4	20	81	0.94
10	Bob Feller	7	Ind. Games	5	1	.833	2.25	7	5	0	0	60.0	39	15	1	42	91	1.35

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/3/2013.

Darvish is right up there. Of course, he’s aided by playing in an era with historically ~~high~~ astronomical strikeout rates. Gooden’s 15 double-digit K games came in 1984, when the MLB-wide strikeout rate was 5.4 per 9 innings. Last year, the K rate was 7.6 per 9, an increase of 40% over Gooden’s time. (And don’t get me started on the 2013 K rate so far–it’s 8.7 per 9…which is pretty much unfathomable.)

Interestingly, despite his success last year, yesterday’s game was Darvish’s first game score over 80:

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	App,Dec	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	Pit	Str	GSc
1	2013-04-02	TEX	HOU	W 7-0	GS-9 ,W	8.2	1	0	0	0	14	0	111	78	96

2	2012-09-20	TEX	LAA	W 3-1	GS-8 ,W	8.0	4	1	1	1	9	0	108	70	78
3	2012-09-08	TEX	TBR	W 4-2	GS-8	8.0	2	2	1	2	8	0	96	64	78

4	2012-04-24	TEX	NYY	W 2-0	GS-9 ,W	8.1	7	0	0	2	10	0	119	82	77

5	2012-09-14	TEX	SEA	W 9-3	GS-7 ,W	7.0	2	1	1	2	9	0	110	79	76

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/3/2013.

He still has no shutouts and no complete games in his MLB career.

And finally, Darvish’s game is now the best starting pitching performance (game score-wise) of the first two games of any Rangers season:

Rk	Player	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	App,Dec	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	GSc
1	Yu Darvish	2013-04-02	TEX	HOU	W 7-0	GS-9 ,W	8.2	1	0	0	0	14	0	96

2	Fergie Jenkins	1974-04-06	TEX	OAK	W 2-0	SHO9 ,W	9.0	1	0	0	1	10	0	94

3	Jon Matlack	1980-04-10	TEX	NYY	W 1-0	GS-9	9.0	3	0	0	0	5	0	86

4	Gaylord Perry	1976-04-09	TEX	MIN	W 2-1	CG 11 ,W	11.0	7	1	1	0	4	0	83

5	Kevin Brown	1992-04-07	TEX	SEA	W 4-0	SHO9 ,W	9.0	4	0	0	4	7	0	82

6	Bert Blyleven	1977-04-07	TEX	BAL	W 2-1	CG 10 ,W	10.0	6	1	1	3	8	0	81

7	Charlie Hough	1989-04-04	TEX	DET	W 4-0	SHO9 ,W	9.0	5	0	0	2	5	0	80

8	Bennie Daniels	1962-04-09	WSA	DET	W 4-1	CG 9 ,W	9.0	5	1	1	2	7	0	78

9	Gaylord Perry	1977-04-09	TEX	BAL	W 5-1	CG 9 ,W	9.0	5	1	1	3	6	0	76
10	Jim Umbarger	1976-04-10	TEX	MIN	W 4-1	CG 9 ,W	9.0	6	1	0	2	5	0	76

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/3/2013.

Jenkins’ game was the second of the 1974 season for the Rangers. His 1-hitter came a day after Jim Bibby was roughed up pitching the season opener.

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brp

11 years ago

I just assumed they let him complete the game, but I should have figured he’d thrown over 100 pitches so his arm must have magically gotten fatigued after that base hit.

Thomas

Reply to brp

The Rangers did have 2 guys warming and ready in the 8th inning, ready to take Darvish out as soon as he gave up a hit, of course that never happened but it wasn’t just a 9th inning thing. They wanted to pull him sooner, but were, of course, going to give him the shot at a no-no/perfect game.

Editor

birtelcom

Yu’s 96 Game Score came in his 30th game in the majors. The last time a pitcher had a Game Score that high that early in his major league career was 1998, when there were two such games: Kerry Wood’s famous 20K performance in his fifth major league appearance and a Kevin Millwood 13K one-hitter against the Pirates in his 15th major leage game. Before those two, you have to go all the back to 1967’s Don Wilson no-hitter in his 15th MLB game.

deal

A look back at an Opening Day non-No-Hitter thrown by another Texas Ranger – Nolan Ryan and a Yu Darvish WBC Card:

http://phungo.blogspot.com/2013/04/2009-topps-wbc-1-yu-darvish.html

John Autin

Reply to deal

BTW, the Ryan game that deal linked to was the first time (since at least 1916) that an Opening Day starter went exactly 5 scoreless innings. It’s been done 6 times since, including Verlander this year and Johan last year.

Hartvig

The first thought that came to mind when looking at the list of most 10+ SO games in the first 30 was how many of those pitchers were early flameouts- to one extent or another you could say that about all of them even Feller. I also thought about how often this happens- I thought I could recall 4 other times (Galarraga in 2010, Mussina in 2001, Stieb in 1989 and Terry Mulholland in 1990 (which I was wrong about actually). Turns out that it’s happened at least 7 more times besides the 3 I could (correctly) remember plus I… Read more »

Bryan O'Connor

Reply to Hartvig

So our small sample tells us that, once a pitcher has retired 26 straight batters, there’s a 33% chance that the 27th guy reaches base (Haddix got the 27th guy). Not all that different from the chance anyone gets on base at any time.

Baseball is an amazing game.

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

Andy, thanks for tweeting me credit for this, but it should certainly be shared, both with Hartvig, who did the research above, and with Bells, who (I just noticed) beat me to a very similar comment last night on another post.

mosc

so using the 33% chance of reaching base as a typical rate, the pitching independent expectation (assuming all pitchers and hitters are equal in ability with no weighting towards extremes) of a perfect game through 9ip would just be 1/((1-.33)^27) or 1 in 50,000 games. This number is extremely sensitive to changes in the average expectation of base runners. 32% chance of reaching base gives a perfecto ever 33k games. 34.8% chance of reaching base gives a perfecto every 100k games.

How many games total again?

Richard Chester

Reply to mosc

For the first 10 games that were broken up by the 27th batter, the average OBP of all of the 27th batters was .321. Without pitcher George McQuillan, who broke up the first game, the OBP for the other 9 games was .334. Those OBPs are for the year in which they broke up the perfect game.

Reply to Richard Chester

I was thinking more high level. How many games and what is the expected OBP

Paul E

Not for anything, but I believe the 2013 Houston Astros are probably going to resolve a long standing debate in the Sabrmetric community between Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference: What is the value of a team full of replacement level players, 52 or 47 wins?

Perhaps we can take an average of the Miami Marlins and Houston Astros this season, divide it by the “harmonic mean” of the……….

Fireworks

I still don’t get why the normal big spenders were so gun-shy about Yu. I know Dice-BB dampened things but everything about Darvish screams potential star. Tall, swing and miss stuff and better command than that other WBC star. Plus the posting fee doesn’t count against payroll or luxury tax. Darvish instead of Wilson was the right move for Texas. As was letting Josh walk. Nice to see some organizations that can make smart moves for the future. On a related note I wish Tampa Bay had a real ballpark and real fan base. I love Joe Maddon (I’d take… Read more »