Game Thread: Kerry Wood Strikes Out 20
Here's a pretty good way to start getting revved up for the 2009 season. MLB Network is showing Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game right now, (6:00 p.m. Sunday), and then again Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. (The link is to the box score.)
This was only the fifth start of Wood's big-league career, and per the Game Score stat, it is arguably the most "dominant" start by any pitcher, ever. (It gets the nod over perfect games due to the balance of strikeouts vs. hits and walks. Hat-tip to odrarek and pased_ball.)
Despite huge years from McGwire and Sosa, Houston led the league with 5.40 runs per game and a 117 OPS+. This was pre-bandbox, and pre-the-NL-really-sucks. Here are the hitters who were in the Astros lineup that day, along with their OPS+ for the 1998 season:
Craig Biggio - 139
Derek Bell - 125
Jeff Bagwell - 158
Jack Howell - 125
Moises Alou - 157
Dave Clark - 47
Ricky Gutierrez - 79
Brad Ausmus - 91
about 3 years ago
Jay
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Game score is a metric devised by Bill James to show how dominating a pitcher was in any particular game. To determine a starting pitcher’s game score: (1) Start with 50 points. (2) Add 1 point for each out recorded, so 3 points for every complete inning pitched. (3) Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. (4) Add 1 point for each strikeout. (5) Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. (6) Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. (7) Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. (8) Subtract 1 point for each walk.
The top game score in the history of baseball was Kerry Wood’s one-hit, no walk, 20 strikeout performance against the Astros on May 6, 1998. His game score was 105.
Of course, women’s softball pitchers beat this score routinely.
Bagwell gets the call on a check swing, gets ahead on a 2-1 count. Strike swinging, strike called. Walks away shaking his head.
I can’t believe nobody else is going to watch this.
I’ve been looking forward to it since your original post. Problem is, at least for me, the MLB network is “unavailable at this time”. I’m pissed, especially because it was available around 4 this afternoon.
I refuse to ever root for a team that routinely does the MVP chant for opposing players.
by TheVanillaGorilla on Feb 8, 2009 6:17 PM EST up reply actions
This actually reminds me, my cable went out for about an hour, exactly when McGwire hit #62. I was pretty pissed.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 6:21 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, it does seem like that. He is basically their only recognizable personality.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 6:36 PM EST up reply actions
Won’t take you long to catch up on the DVR, since you can skip the bottom of every inning. I’d watch the top of the 1st and 2nd, then skip ahead to the live feed.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 6:47 PM EST up reply actions
Is the problem that the computer is now in the bathroom?
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 6:49 PM EST up reply actions
spoiler alert
Here’s all the guys who made contact or reached base:
2nd – Clark, flyball to center
3rd – Gutierrez, infield single
3rd – Reynolds, sac bunt
4th – Bell, flyball on RF line
6th – Ausmus, groundout
6th – Biggio, hit by pitch (of course)
6th – Bell, foul popup
9th – Biggio, groundout
Not a lot of hard contact.
Interesting to watch Sosa. He comes in with a very nice 981 OPS for the first two weeks, but his career-best is 887. He’s got six home runs through his first 31 games and will only hit three more by May 24. Nobody has the slightest clue that he’s going to jack 23 more from May 25 to June 25 and finish with 66.
So what do we think about the size of his head at this point?
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:01 PM EST up reply actions
why did MLB wait so long to do this. right now i have set to record a special on last year’s silver sluggers, two ken burns eppisodes, and a show about roberto clemente among other things whilst i watch our new closer strike out 20 a decade ago.
They waited until they felt they had the leverage to force the great majority of cable and satellite operators to carry the channel. It worked.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:00 PM EST up reply actions
unfortunate camera work/game commentary moment – announcer talking about Bagwell’s padding (on his hand) while camera focuses in on his crotch
so, this was around the time i first lived in chicago. i remember being blown away that i could walk 5 blocks to wrigley on a whim and go to a game and walk that same 5 blocks and jump on the EL down to comisky for a tribe-sox game and buy day-of tickets down low. this was of course around our run of it being so difficult to get tickets at the Jake and this dynamic played no small part in my deciding to move here for good.
My buddy Jason and I talked with Sandy Martinez at Camden Yards. He was warming up guys in the bullpen, and our seats were adjacent to it. I think it was the season he was with the Indians briefly, and then we dealt him to the Red Sox for a bag of balls. Actually, I think it was 2004, because I think he got a ring even though he wasn’t on the posteason roster. Nice guy.
wow – i just discovered “the whale that exploded” is being shown on the National Geographic channel…i might have to switch over for a while.
You don’t want to miss the top of the 5th. Or 7th, 8th or 9th.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:08 PM EST up reply actions
he saw the story about a-rod and figured that was the best place to go to get his career back on track.
they also tabbed brendan donnelly with a minor league deal
by APV on Feb 8, 2009 7:17 PM EST up reply actions
Ha. Every time I see his name, I think of a PD headline from sometime in the 80’s – “Dave Clark Five”. He had 5 RBI in a game and I liked those Beatle wannabe’s as a youngster.
by kennesawmountainwahoo on Feb 9, 2009 8:19 PM EST up reply actions
Wood’s stuff is relatively untouched by injury. Last season, he threw a plus slider that clocked between 85 and 90, and his heater sat in the mid-90s, elevating to 98 when required. His once-devastating curve/slurve is basically gone, but Wood certainly looked no worse for wear, posting his best strikeout rates since his rookie season. In terms of pure stuff, this is basically the same pitcher of whom premier slugger Jeff Bagwell once said, "I got no chance."
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:22 PM EST up reply actions
Is it the one about the killer whales killing the pilot whales or whatever off the coast of San Fran? The mom trying to save the baby?
Ish is awesome.
Nope. Sperm whale blows up on a street in Taiwan and scientists try to figure out why.
by APV on Feb 9, 2009 6:01 AM EST up reply actions
So, Ryan Howard. Good for him I suppose. Enters free agency after his age-31 season, which I think is a perfect time for both the player and the club to mutually part ways.
Steel Nick
I agree. I don’t think what he got is any more/less than he would’ve gotten from the Phillies in arb for the next three years anyway, so might as well just sign the guy & get it out of the way instead of taking him to arbitration every year. And he’s not a guy who’s going to age well anyway, I don’t think.
DISCLAIMER: I may be bitter.
Kind of have a cool true story semi-related to this game, Kerry Wood, and the Tribe coming back to Wrigley for 2009.
I was on a job interview in Chicago in 1998 that basically started my career in marketing… looking at retrosheet, it must have been June 3rd 1998 against the Marlins. It was a mid-week day game. Wood was pitching (seem to remember the Marlins playing) and I had like a series of interviews that morning and happened to have the afternoon open and ended up deciding to hit this game.
So I end up getting the job (boy, remember how great the market was back then?), and my first day on the job is Monday June 22nd… which happens to be the beloved Indians playing at Wrigley for a mini-2 game set.
Friday, June 19th, I end up partying at the Greenville Inn in Chagrin Falls till about 3AM and though I feel like hell, my dad and I trek out to Chicago on Saturday June 20th at like 7AM to move all my stuff in to a place I’m renting. At the time, leading up to that weekend, some of my buddies are telling me, “Hey, look for us at Saturday’’s night game (another crazy part of the story…I don’t even recall if there’s ever been another Saturday night game at Wrigley since I’ve lived in Chicago). My buddies were going to the Indians games, but they were also in town for the weekend (home set against the Phillies) and supposedly new some people that could "get us up on one of the rooftops” outside Wrigley. I’m like, yeah whatever, but hopefully we’ll see each other. Incidentally this is pre-cellphone ownership as well.
This happened to be still before all of the corporate rooftops (where you have to pay about $180 per game) were 100% constructed. For those of you who remember, straight down the left field line on Waveland there was this one smaller pink house (Chip Caray used to actually call it the John Cougar Mellancamp house). You couldn’t really SEE the action, but you could see most of the pitcher/hitter match up, etc.
So after Dad helps construct the futon in this place I’m renting, and I get a much needed nap, we head out to the Wrigley neighborhood just to check things out during the pre-game. Sure enough, as we’re walking down Waveland, I hear shouts from the this mid-deck rooftop, like… Hey… Chris…c’mon up here! What’s up! So Dad and I, in a bit of a haze, head up to this mid-level rooftop.
After we’re there a bit, keg beer rolling, Dad, a little out of his element, says “Look, I know you can’t leave, but I’m a little out of my element, I’m just going to walk around some more and head back to your place”. Exit Dad.
So Dad heads out. At some point during the game, Kerry Wood belts a home run. We’re going nuts on this mid-level rooftop. Then, later in the game, I’m not on the deck area, but just inside on the 3rd floor. Sosa belts a cannon shot straight down the left field line… and it literally bounces around the mid-level deck area of this pink house outside (somebody missed a grab) and falls to the front yard level. Beer flying around, everyone going crazy (like the “Journey – Anyway You Want It” scene in Caddy Shack when Dangerfield yells out “So Let’s Dance!”).
Not bad for my 1st day living in Chicago.
It must have been sad leaving the greenville. I love that place.
I refuse to ever root for a team that routinely does the MVP chant for opposing players.
by TheVanillaGorilla on Feb 8, 2009 8:14 PM EST up reply actions
Are you guys from Chagrin Falls? My parents live in South Russell.
by cleveland teamer on Feb 8, 2009 9:45 PM EST up reply actions
I spent about ten years in Bainbridge and my parents still live there.
I refuse to ever root for a team that routinely does the MVP chant for opposing players.
by TheVanillaGorilla on Feb 8, 2009 10:07 PM EST up reply actions
Whoa, that is scary close. Kensington Green here.
by cleveland teamer on Feb 9, 2009 9:56 AM EST up reply actions
Just saw an ad for 1997 World Series highlights (Friday at 8). Seeing that little Renteria blooper over Nagy’s glove still hurts a little bit.
DISCLAIMER: I may be bitter.
This is a bit like watching Lebowski, which was a period piece set only eight years in the past. (“This aggression will not stand, man.”)
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:54 PM EST up reply actions
i like to think this game played a part in our getting wood. that the pitch count that day helped contribute to his injury problems and had he not had them, he’d have never become a closer or available this offseason.
I don’t know, 122 is not that unreasonable considering the lack of stress. I mean, it’s the most dominant start of all-time, isn’t it extremely low-stress by definition?
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:58 PM EST up reply actions
don’t crush my dream. i’m still coping with the fact that jeff stevens will never record the last out of the world series for us. perhaps derosa will hit a walk-off
Stevens could still be on the wrong side of the game-winning hit for us.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:09 PM EST up reply actions
so, jay, the chapter about how we got our cleveland indians – i presume that that’s that tree thing you’ve shown parts of in the past that you’d been working on?
that that that
That’s just a two-page spread, and it is basically an update of the “Acquiring the New Champs” thing that I did in September 2007 — with pictures!
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:56 PM EST up reply actions
Kind of surprised we don’t have a little more activity here. I thought people would jump at the chance to Game Thread. Or just to do ANYTHING.
sans tv, and writing. also! finally stopped mexico’s run in FIFA
So 2009.
by Gradyforpresident on Feb 8, 2009 8:06 PM EST up reply actions
I’m trying to picture the hitters trying to adjust to Wood after seeing, say, Laffey, then Lewis, then Perez.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:11 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
That’s a little more hypothetical than I can manage.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:15 PM EST up reply actions
Allowed himself a split-second of emotion … a quick fist-pump but no yelling … even with 20 strikeouts, still less emotion than Justin showed on the occasion of a three-run Hold in May. That’s just how he rolls.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:26 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
I really feel like we basically got that guy, too. The ten years of aging and injuries are counter-balanced by the fact that he only has to pitch one inning.
by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:26 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
They just played Randy Johnson’s 20 K game. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ARI/ARI200105080.shtml
What an amazing game. Besides the 20 Ks, it went into extras at 1-1. It also featured a 2 run sac fly and a blown save by Danny Graves.
On a side note, I just assumed it was the Reds broadcast because Thom Brennamen was announcing, but he seamed to be a little pro-Arizona. That’s when I remembered he was out there for a few years before going to the Reds.
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