04/25/24
June 22, 2010
Rivera Retires 21 Consecutive Batters: New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera has retired 21 consecutive batters dating back to June 3, breaking his record of 20. "It doesn't surprise me," said Manager Joe Girardi. Six more and he'll complete a relief no-hitter.
Which if you think about it, is pretty... unimpressive. After all, a closer typically pitches only one inning so doesn't even go through the lineup once. The hitters don't get as much time to watch from the dugout to pick up on how the ball's moving, the hitters he faces are as often as not the lower half of the lineup, and the closer gets to put a little more juice into their pitching since they only are going for 3 outs.
Saying "The closer has another 1-2-3 inning in this relief appearance" and he does that 7 times in a row is nice but like I said unimpressive. I'm curious how often the average starting pitcher throws 7 consecutive games with a 1-2-3 second or third inning, to compare to the typical situation a reliever faces.
posted by hincandenza at 04:47 PM on June 22, 2010
But not a relief perfect game? Pfft. We've got higher standards now.
You're damn right we do.
Bobby Jenks threw 14 consecutive innings (42 batters over 14 appearances) without giving up a hit or a walk, between July 17, 2007 and August 12, 2007.
Mark Buerhle threw 14.2 consecutive innings (44 batters over 2 appearances) without giving up a hit or a walk, between July 23, 2009 and July 28, 2009.
posted by grum@work at 05:16 PM on June 22, 2010
Saying "The closer has another 1-2-3 inning in this relief appearance" and he does that 7 times in a row is nice but like I said unimpressive. I'm curious how often the average starting pitcher throws 7 consecutive games with a 1-2-3 second or third inning, to compare to the typical situation a reliever faces.
I'm curious how often a closer actually has 7 1-2-3 innings in a row. Since you're sure it's an "unimpressive" feat, maybe you have a sense of how often it actually happens.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:37 PM on June 22, 2010
I'm curious as to whether you'd care if it weren't a Yankee.
posted by yerfatma at 10:08 PM on June 22, 2010
I care when he's on one of my fantasy teams.
posted by ursus_comiter at 10:14 PM on June 22, 2010
I'm curious as to whether you'd care if it weren't a Yankee.
Probably not. So what of it? Are we not allowed to take an interest in teams that we follow here?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 10:33 PM on June 22, 2010
I'd say it happens fairly often; I don't know where and how to do so such a search (find all pitchers where for a given inning X they had a 1-2-3 inning for 7 straight games) but it can't be *that* rare. I can't seem to get the Baseball-Reference streak search to work.
I did find in a quick google search this Baseball Prospectus about "hidden perfect games". From 1972-2003 there were 61 hidden perfect games where a pitcher (start or reliever) retired 27 consecutive batters over multiple appearances. So that's about two streaks a year of 27 straight in any capacity. I imagine if the streak size were lowered to 21 batters the numbers would increase significantly. I'd wild-ass guess that retiring 21 consecutive batters in a row happens ~10 times a year, and the number of times a starting pitcher retires the side 1-2-3 in 7 consecutive arbitrary {first | second | third | etc} innings happens even more often.
So yeah... I don't think 6 perfect innings spaced out over multiple relief appearances is that impressive. Even if he gets the next 6 hitters he faces, he'll still equal something that happens apparently a couple of times a year anyway.
posted by hincandenza at 10:56 PM on June 22, 2010
Mark Buerhle threw 14.2 consecutive innings (44 batters over 2 appearances) without giving up a hit or a walk, between July 23, 2009 and July 28, 2009.
I am fairly sure Buehrle threw 15 innings of perfect ball -- he got 27 in the perfect game on 7/23 against Tampa, plus the 17 against the Twins on 7/28, but in the game preceding the perfect game (7/18 against Baltimore), he retired the last batter he faced even though he was pulled in the middle of the inning.
posted by holden at 10:57 PM on June 22, 2010
You are correct, holden.
I misread the results of the 8th inning of the July 18th game.
(It was the reliever after Buerhle that was pulled after giving up a hit.)
It is 15 perfect innings for Buerhle.
I can't seem to get the Baseball-Reference streak search to work.
It needs three criteria (H=0, BB=0, IP=1), but there is room for only two.
However, I ran it for (H=0, BB=0) and then sorted by innings pitched (not appearances). I then counted the times IP>=appearances>=7.
Mariano Rivera is listed with a streak of 6, since he walked the first batter of the first game of the streak of 7 that is mentioned in the article, so that doesn't count as a "1-2-3 inning".
posted by grum@work at 12:54 AM on June 23, 2010
But not a relief perfect game? Pfft. We've got higher standards now.