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August 11, 2000 The Daily ProspectusGame ScoresWednesday's column on the Pedro Martinez/Ramon Ortiz duel speculated on the game's possible place on a list of 2000's top combined Game Scores, since the two pitchers had combined to post a 160. Game Scores are a simple measure of the quality of a start, first published in the 1988 Baseball Abstract and calculated as follows:
Start at 50 Add 1 point for each batter retired Add 2 points for each complete inning from the fifth on Add 1 point for each strikeout Subtract 1 point for each walk allowed Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed A nine-inning outing provides a base score of 87 plus strikeouts, which makes calculations off those games easy. You can also add hits, runs and earned runs and multiply by two to combine the last few steps. The scale of starts run roughly from 1 to 100, with a 100 every couple of years and negative scores a possibility--Jamie Moyer put up a -9 on Wednesday night. It's a fun thing to play with, and once you do a couple, you can do them almost unconsciously. (I'm sure the formula is old to many of you. Thanks for not skipping straight to Transaction Analysis.) A number of people wrote in to nominate games as possible contenders for best combined Game Score. First, let's take a look at the top starts of 2000 (all data courtesy BP's wizard, Keith Woolner):
Date Pitcher W/L IP H R ER BB SO GS No one has cracked the magical 100 barrier yet this season, with the season's best outings by the American League's best pitchers topping the list by far. Note that two of the starts on the list, Steve Trachsel's and the last Martinez start, were in the same game, that memorable Saturday afternoon duel at Fenway Park. Three of the others came in the next few days. Pedro's Tuesday start, in which he lost despite a Game Score of 77, got me wondering what the top Game Scores in a loss have been. Enter Keith Woolner:
Date Pitcher W/L IP H R ER BB SO GS Just three pitchers have lost with a Game Score of 80 or above, and two of those, Martinez and Roger Clemens, lost to a performance on the first list. Jon Lieber lost 1-0 to Greg Maddux, who put up a complete-game 81 on Memorial Day. Those three games figure prominently on our final list, the top combined Game Scores:
Date Pitcher GS Pitcher GS Total Pedro Martinez has been involved in four of the top six games, two of those on the losing end. It takes a great night to beat the best, so both Trachsel and Ortiz deserve all the credit in the world for their performances. Thanks to Sam Hutcheson, Kyung Ro and Mark Allen for pointing out the first two games on the list. Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com.
Joe Sheehan is an author of Baseball Prospectus.
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