Last night New York Yankees relief pitcher Dave Robertson threw only one pitch and got the win. Well done kid. Now you're truly a one-pitch wonder!
A statistical anomaly. A $200 trivia question. Not quite YBNBY sports fans.
Turns out Robertson is not alone in this feat. He's actually the eighth pitcher this season to earn a one-pitch victory.
Wha-wha-wha?
Yes Ms. Broflovski, that's what I said. So lets cheer the other seven one-pitch winners...
#1
On April 10, Jorge Sosa of the Mets retired Pedro Feliz with one pitch in the 12th to earn the win. Mets fans cheered "Hip-hip Jorge!"
Lets continue with this seasons one-pitch wonders...
#2
On April 19th, Boston's Javier Lopez got the Rangers Josh Hamilton out on one pitch. The Sox scored in the bottom of the inning to earn Javier the victory. He's got Manny's homer to thank for this one.
#3 and 4
Milwaukee's Brian Shouse is the king of one-pitch wins this season. Rock star! The first time he did it was on April 17. His single pitch in the bottom of the ninth got the out. Then his Brewers scored twice in the 10th to give Brian the "W."
Two weeks later on May 1st, Shouse made one pitch, then picked off the Cub's Kosuke Fukudome attempting to steal for the third out. Milwaukee scored three runs in the 9th to earn Shouse his unconventional 2-0 record. (He's now 4-1 with 2 saves.)
#5
Also on May 1, (Coincidence? Maybe.) the Dodgers' Joe Beimel got Florida's Jeremy Hermida to pop out on one pitch to end the inning. The Dodgers scored two in the top of the 9th and Beimel got his first win of the year. He and Shouse became the answer to a SportsCenter quiz the next night.
#6
A few days later, on May 5th, Atlanta's Royce Ring's one pitch resulted in a shallow fly ball out. He was the pitcher of record as Atlanta beat the Reds a few innings later.
#7
Finally on July 13th, St. Louis reliever Russ Springer's one-and-only pitch got Jason Bay to pop out, squash a rally and earn the victory. Next to plunking Barry Bonds a few years ago, that is Springer's big claim to fame. To date.
Time will tell if this statistical oddity will continue over the final months of the season. I'll kind of be paying attention. I hope you kinda-sorta will be too.
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Shouldn't the title be '8 pitches, 8 wins'?
It could be zenpunk but it's not.
How about zero pitches, one win?
From Wikipedia:
"On 2003-05-01, B.J. Ryan logged an unusual accomplishment: he won a game without throwing a pitch. Ryan's first throw was to first base where he picked off Detroit Tigers' Omar Infante to end the inning. The Orioles took the lead in the next half-inning and Ryan was relieved to begin the half-inning after that."
I think there have been a few of those over the years. Quite unique. Have there been any 0 pitch wins this year?
Thanks for the comment.
More trivia along the same line.
There was once a relief pitcher who pitched a perfect game, sort of.
Babe Ruth walks the lead-off batter, and gets ejected arguing the call.
Ernie Shore comes on in relief, picks off the runner and retires the next 26 batters for a perfect game with a big *
Awesome Jaxx. Great memory.
People keep these trivia things coming.