GreenMonster
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| posted on 3-9-2004 at 07:05 AM |
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Singlehanded Victories
In honor of Sean Flaherty's recent heroics at bat and the plate, I humbly present a (partial) list of knuckleball throwers who earned a win the
hard way--but throwing the ball and hitting it. (It's partial because Retrosheet only goes back so far...)
#5) 1 October 1982. The Atlanta Braves lead the los Angeles Dodgers by one game with three games remaining. Phil Niekro throws a
a 3-hit shutout in which he walks none and strikes out eight. And he hits a two-run
homer in the 8th inning to bolster the Braves' lead from 1-0 to 3-0. The Braves and Dodgers each win ont he 1st and 2nd, but then they both
lose on the last day of the season, and the Braves make the playoffs.
#4) The Niekro brothers face off on 26 September 1979. Phil earns his 20th victory of the
season (20-20) with a complete-game 4-run, 8-hit performance, and Joe falls to a 20-11 record. But Phil was the offensive hero for the Braves:
he hit a 2-run double off his brother to give the Braves a 2-0 lead, then padded the lead to 7-1 with a two-run single off of Tom Dixon. A
"crowd" of 2248 witnessed the game, one of two in which Phil drove in four runs.
#3) Wilbur Wood was in general a much worse batter than Phil Niekro, but he pretty much defeated the California Angels all by himself on 9 August
1972. Matched up against Nolan Ryan, Wood pitched a 6-hit, 2-walk, 6-strikeout
shutout, but he also made one of his 13 career RBI count. In the 7th, the Angels intentionally walked career .214 hitter Luis Alvarado to pitch
to Wood with runners on 1st and 2nd with two outs. Wood then singled to right field, and led Angels fans to wonder why one would intentionally walk
anyone on the White Sox. (to be fair, Wood was a career .084 hitter.)
#2) Gene Bearden could really hit--and, alas, we have yet to enjoy for free the play-by-play and box scores for the regular seasons in which he
played. But he came close in the 1948 World Series to single-handedly winning Game Three. Bearden threw a
shutout against the Braves: he gave up 5 hits and no walks, and struck out 5 Boston
batters. But his bat was also a potent weapon for the Indians. His double in the third inning led to his scoring the first Cleveland run, and his
single in the fourth knocked Boston starter Vern Bickford out of the game; although the Indians' rally fizzled, Bearden had forced the hand of
Braves manager Billy Southworth.
#1) will have to await more data from the kind folks at retrosheet.org
"[Ring] One [Ring] Two [Ring] Three [Ring] Four? Four. Four Rings. Well, perhaps it is TWO postmen" -- Grover in the Monsterpiece
Theatre production of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
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Chuck Turley
Superstar 
Posts 233
Registered 10-22-2003 Member Is Offline Mood:
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 posted on 3-10-2004 at 02:06 AM |
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Not a knuckleballer, but let's don't forget Rick Wise with the '71 (I think) Phillies. He pitched a no-hitter and hit two homers in
the same game. Probably the greatest single-game performance in history.
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GreenMonster
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| posted on 3-10-2004 at 02:24 AM |
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Rick Wise's feat
Retrosheet doesn't have the 1971 NL play-by-plays and box scores, but Wise did indeed
no-hit the Reds and hit 2 home runs in the same game, on 23 June 1971. Baseball
Almanac claims that he is the only pitcher to perform both feats in the same game.
"[Ring] One [Ring] Two [Ring] Three [Ring] Four? Four. Four Rings. Well, perhaps it is TWO postmen" -- Grover in the Monsterpiece
Theatre production of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
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GreenMonster
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| posted on 3-10-2004 at 02:48 AM |
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#1 (for now)
On 23 April 1952 Hoyt Wilhelm made the first of 1,070 appearances in major league baseball. he
not only pitched 5-1/3 innings of effective relief to get the win, but he also hit a 2-run home run--the only one of his 21-year career as part
of the four-run inning that put his Giants ahead to stay.
I'm sure that Dutch Leonard or Ted Lyons or Gene Bearden or Jesse Haines had days to top any of the ones I've listed (okay, not better
than Rick Wise's day), but I don't have the data to prove it!
"[Ring] One [Ring] Two [Ring] Three [Ring] Four? Four. Four Rings. Well, perhaps it is TWO postmen" -- Grover in the Monsterpiece
Theatre production of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
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