Sergio Romo Got Nearly the Dumbest Win Ever
Pitcher wins are a silly statistic, for all the reasons you know, and additional reasons you don’t. So we pretty much never talk about them — there was a time, once, when the analysts would rail against wins, but that battle is over. The analysts won. Wins carry less value than they ever have, and there’s a part of me that wonders why I’m even bothering to write this post in the first place.
But I just can’t not do it. For one thing, it’s Friday. Leave me alone. It’s August, and the trade deadline just passed, so, again, leave me alone. And even though we don’t talk about them, wins do still exist. Somebody hands them out, and they remain a part of the official records. So I want to take a few minutes of your time to discuss really dumb wins. Sergio Romo just got one Thursday. It was one of the very dumbest.
There are different types of dumb wins, of course. In 1932, Eddie Rommel won a game in which he allowed 14 runs. In 1928, Pete Donohue won a game in which he had a Game Score of 1. And in 1964, Jack Baldschun won a game in which he had a Win Probability Added of -0.862. For a more recent example, in 2014 Luis Avilan won a game in which he had a WPA of -0.815. These are tremendously dumb wins, all of them. There are so many ways to try to find the dumbest win ever awarded.
Everything that goes into the awarding of a win is remarkably complicated. If I might say something, though: One could recommend that a pitcher not qualify for a win unless he records at least one out. Sure, Avilan in his one inning might’ve turned a 5-1 lead into a 6-5 deficit, but Avilan did at least record three outs. It’s bad, but it’s something. Avilan fulfilled something of his own duty. Avilan did something to move the game along. Imagine if there were a pitcher who didn’t.
Imagine.
Perfectly normal-looking info box. The Giants won in extra innings, with Romo earning the decision. What’s suggested here is that Romo either worked a scoreless ninth, or maybe he blew a save in the ninth. In the case of the latter, that would be a dumb win, but a sort of familiar one. What actually happened was out of the ordinary. Let’s go in deeper:
A third of an inning. Well, okay, at least he didn’t allow a baserunner. He threw four pitches. But, wait, what’s that?
Does that say-
Sergio Romo got the win. He did so while facing, officially, zero batters. This is not unprecedented. The recipe tends to be a baserunner getting caught stealing. Romo was on the mound when Cesar Hernandez was thrown out trying to steal second. This all last happened in 2009, when Alan Embree got the win after simply picking off Austin Kearns. In 2008, Brian Shouse simply picked off Kosuke Fukudome. In 2007, Chad Paronto was on the mound when Jarrod Saltalamacchia threw out Rafael Furcal. That’s the last time this happened without the pitcher being directly involved. In all, in addition to Romo’s game, I found 22 cases of a pitcher getting a win while technically not facing anyone. (Thank you, Baseball-Reference Play Index.)
These are all sort of dumb wins. But a game where the pitcher records a successful pick-off? That’s as good as any other out. Nice job by the pitcher. And as you presumably know, when it comes to stolen bases, pitchers have more to do with outcomes than catchers do, because running is a timing game. Runners don’t really run on catchers — they run on pitchers. So if a runner is thrown out, the pitcher was at least some kind of factor.
Here’s Sergio Romo on the mound with Cesar Hernandez getting thrown out:
I can’t speak to the other instances I found using the Play Index. I don’t know what those events looked like. I know only what this event looked like, and, Cesar Hernandez wasn’t thrown out cleanly. Hernandez sort of successfully stole second base off of Romo. But then, for what wasn’t his first time, Hernandez over-slid. Here he is getting in in advance of the throw:
Good steal! A split-second later:
The Phillies’ broadcasters were in utter disbelief. I’m given to understand this has happened way too often. I haven’t watched very much Cesar Hernandez this season so I’m going to take their word for it. Anyway, the point: Because the Giants scored in the top of the next inning, Sergio Romo was given credit for the win. He faced zero batters, and he was successfully stolen against. Cesar Hernandez just couldn’t stop himself. Hernandez over-slid, and now Romo is 1-0. Last year he went 0-5.
I get why Romo wound up with the win. It’s just silly when you step back and consider what the statistic is supposed to reflect. Romo did nothing to win the game at all. He wasn’t in any way helpful. He wasn’t in any meaningful way unhelpful. He might as well have not been in there. The win went to maybe the least-important player. But while I’m here, I mentioned I found 22 other cases where a pitcher won without facing any hitters. One of those cases stands out, because the winning pitcher somehow still managed to record a negative WPA. Behold Tyler Johnson. Behold September 27, 2006.
The Cardinals and Padres were tied at 1 in the top of the eighth. Johnson relieved Braden Looper, and he inherited two outs and runners on second and third. Mark Bellhorn was pinch-hitting for Russell Branyan, which is a very 2006 sentence, and the count ran to 2-and-2. Then Johnson threw the pitch that won him the game.
Wild Pitch; Greene Scores/unER; Gonzalez out at Hm/C-P
Johnson threw a wild pitch, allowing Khalil Greene to score from third. That put the Padres in the lead. But the play wasn’t finished. Johnson wound up with the win because he got credit for an out, and he got credit for an out because Adrian Gonzalez tried to score all the way from second. He was tagged out at the plate. And, in fairness, it was Johnson who did the tagging. But now look at what we have: Tyler Johnson won after recording his one out on a wild pitch. The pitch was so wild that literally Adrian Gonzalez thought that he could score from 180 feet away. And he must’ve gotten mighty close since he didn’t end up in a rundown. Do you know how unusual it is for a runner to try to score from second on a wild pitch? Do you know how unusual it is when Adrian Gonzalez is that runner? Do you know how unusual it is for a pitcher to throw a pitch that so evades Yadier Molina in the first place?
Tyler Johnson, technically, recorded an out. In the bottom of the inning, Albert Pujols slugged a go-ahead, three-run dinger. Johnson got the win. It was the first big-league win of his career.
Sergio Romo on Thursday was awarded with a very dumb win. It wasn’t, at least, quite as dumb as Tyler Johnson’s win. And I haven’t even touched on the rare pitchers who wound up with wins while recording their only outs on outfield assists. There are many ways to end up with a dumb win. It’s one of the reasons why we don’t use wins. And I don’t quite know how to rank which wins have been officially the dumbest. Sergio Romo, though, is in the conversation. He walked in, did nothing, and came away the victor. I don’t know why this is still a statistic.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
No, this is not the first time. Aside from being a fast guy, Cesar Hernandez is easily one of the worst baserunners in baseball.
Jeff Sullivan:”Do you know how unusual it is for a runner to try to score on a wild pitch?”
God damn it, I almost got over Matt Duffy getting traded and now you have to go and say this.
This, my dear Jeff, is pure gold. Wonderful, baseball-related comedy gold.
I thought it couldn’t get any weirder and funnier than Romo’s “win”, and then you come up with that 10-year-old thing.
And not just the facts, also the way you manage to lay them out:
“The pitch was so wild that literally Adrian Gonzalez thought that he could score from 180 feet away”. Very nice jab.
I hereby demand that, whenever you stumble upon one of these weird, unreal stats and games, you tell us about it. In this exact same way.
Jesus, dude. It’s a nice article, but you can stand up now.
As a Cardinals fan, I can tell you that nothing about the 2006 season made any sense.
Cesar Hernandez is a weird combination of above average speed and horrid awareness. His misadventures in the basepaths could warrant its own article.
Of the players with at least 17 stolen base attempts, he has the highest CS% (41.2%)
(I admit 17 is a cherry picked figure because at a minimum of 15 SBA, George Springer leads the majors in CS% at 53.3%. Yikes.)
Hardball TImes used to run a weekly column on dumb win, losses and saves. There are really dumb examples of each literally every single week. Maybe not this dumb, but dumb. The saves award was of course named the Wes Littleton award in honor of Littleton getting a save for pitching the last 3 innings of that 30-3 Rangers/Orioles game in 2007. . . .
This is great stuff. On a related note, it looks like Alan Embree was the most recent pitcher to win a game without throwing a pitch in 2009.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/5756884//
At my college, I remember a pitcher getting the win after picking off a baserunner and then exiting the game. I believe it was the only win of his college career. It was Senior Day.
In his defense, he had a great pickoff move.
So what would be the theoretical worst way to get a win? Come in with the bases loaded, give up a triple that the batter tries to extend into an inside-the-park home run and gets thrown out at the plate, followed by the pitcher’s team walking it off in the bottom of the inning?
The worst way to get a win would be to come in with two out and nobody on in the top of the ninth, holding a 10-0 lead, giving up 10 runs before finally getting that third out on a grand-slam robbing catch (the pitcher had to stay in because Matheny already went through the rest of the bullpen), and then the pitcher’s team walks it off in the bottom of the ninth.
If I remember correctly, the official scorer has the option to strip the pitcher of a win and give it to someone else if the pitcher has been especially ineffective. I think blowing a 10 run lead and only getting one out would probably invoke this rule. Allowing three inherited runners to score would not.
Another competitor for my original scenario is for the pitcher to come in the same spot, try to pick off a runner, throw the ball away wildly, two runners score and the third is thrown out at the plate. That could be made worse by getting the pitcher to make another error on the play somehow.
Problem is, the rules do require him to give the win to SOMEONE. In most of these cases, there’s nobody else logical to give it to.
This option only exists if the winning team has never trailed and the starter didn’t go 5 innings. Strangely, the starter is not eligible for this award, even though the pitchers after him may have been less effective.
On June 18, 1961, Wes Stock was credited with a win after facing two batters, getting a walk and a double play respectively, in the bottom of the 1st–he had come on in relief of Jack Fisher, who allowed 5 runs in a third of an inning. In the top of the 2nd, the manager pinch hit for Stock with 2 outs, but it was enough to start a rally as his Orioles put up an 8 spot in the inning, and that 8-5 score held up for the entire rest of the game. Since they pinch hit, Dick Hall had to take over on the mound for 2nd, and nursed the lead all the way home, earning credit for an 8-inning save, the longest a save outing can be even in theory.
A “worst possible win” might be along those lines, but with the 1st inning structured a bit different. Suppose the starter gets chased after 6 runs in 0.2 innings, leaving the bases loaded, and the next guy throws three nearly-wild pitches that the catcher just manages to keep in front of him. That leads to a 3-0 meatball that gets deposited in the seats. Except the runner from 3rd not only isn’t sure the ball has enough carry to make it for a home run, he also forgets how many outs there are, and goes back to tag up. This unexpected trip back to the bag catches the runner from 2nd off guard, and he’s unable to stop before passing the lead runner, registering the third out and ending the inning. Then you just have to mix in the 7-run rally in the 2nd, a reliever one-upping Madison Bumgarner by pitching 8 innings to close the game out where every batter he faces represents the tying run, and a scorekeeper who’s loath to invoke 9.17(c).
Maybe throw in some action that causes the pitcher to get ejected on the play as well, making his “win” even more hollow.
“earning credit for an 8-inning save, the longest a save outing can be even in theory.”
The visiting team scores ten runs in the top of the 1st. The starter walks the leadoff batter and is ejected for arguing balls and strikes. A reliever comes in, records an out, and then leaves with an injury. Another reliever comes in and pitches the final 8 2/3 innings, never relinquishing the lead. Doesn’t the scorer have discretion to award the win to the first reliever, giving the second reliever an 8 2/3 inning save?
(Why wouldn’t the scorer give the win to the guy who pitched most of the innings? Maybe he gave up 9 runs to make the game 10-9, and the scorer judged that the guy who got one clean out was more deserving.)
This might be the worst one that I can personally remember: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ARI/ARI201109270.shtml
Extra innings – Micah Owings comes in and gives up 5 R in the top of the 10th and of the 3 outs he recorded, 1 was a sharp line drive out and the 3rd out was a strikeout of Justin Sellers who owns a career 574 OPS. Only 4 of the runs were earned, but the error that gave up the 5th run was on Owings himself.
Dbacks walk it off in the bottom of the 10th with a 2 out grand slam by Ryan Roberts trailing by 3. (this HR often comes up in “largest WPA in a single PA” pieces).
I’ll submit Tyler Clippard in the 2011 ASG –
http://www.baseball-reference.com/allstar/2011-allstar-game.shtml
There were 19 pitchers in the game. 18 successfully retired a hitter. The one that failed to do so? Tyler Clippard.
You need to fix that link to Luis Avilan.
Said no one ever.
“And I haven’t even touched on the rare pitchers who wound up with wins while recording their only outs on outfield assists.”
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The online dating scam equivalent of Sergio Romo’s win.
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Why in the world, if we’re going to keep awarding pitcher wins and losses, do we not change the criteria for it? It was done once before, about 100 years ago, so why not do it again to reflect the way the game is played today? You could either let the official scorer award the win to the pitcher who pitched the most effectively, or if you don’t want it to be a subjective judgment, give it to the guy who had the highest WPA.
“Wins” like Romo’s and Johnson’s are annoying, but what really ticks me off is the type of game where some guy pitches eight outstanding innings, leaves with the game tied 0-0 or 1-1, then his team scored a run in the 9th and the win goes to whatever reliever was pitching at time. And there are many games like that every season. Even worse are the ones where the closer chokes away a lead and then ends up with the “win” himself.
This should be the next area where statistical recordkeeping is reformed. I recall Bill James complaining about this in the late 1980s–and now it’s worse than ever. Either do away with pitcher wins and losses, or make them reflect reality.