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Friday, April 25, 2008
Three straights great games
Rany says:
Since 1956, do you know how many pitchers had made three straight starts with 8+ innings, <=3 hits, <=1 walk, and 8+ strikeouts? Here's the list, which I have put in alphabetical order for your convenience:
Cliff Lee.
That's it.
I thought maybe his definition was too strict, that maybe I can loosen it up a bit. After all, there have been many great back-to-back great games pitched. But, not 3? So, I asked B-r.com for pitchers with at least 8 innings and at most 4 baserunners. I get back just 5 pitchers. Lee, of course, Koufax and Fryman as Rany noted. Plus Jaime Navarro and Tom Cheney. Navarro managed to give up 3 runs on those 10 baserunners. Bad luck, relatively speaking. If I loosen it a bit more to at least 7 innings, Pedro in 2002 comes in with 4 straight games (no runs allowed), along with 3 in 2005 (4 runs allowed). Lee has a total of 25 IP. So, if you make it at least 7 innings per outing, and 25 IP in total, Lee is tied for 6th.
You can shake it up any way you like. But, Lee has done something quite remarkable. Good job on Rany.