I'm pretty sure Phillip Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy will all break that record this year.

Keri is back with ESPN?


Any chance MLB will try to increase the height of the mound again?

The onslaught was relentless, too, with Gibson grabbing the ball from his catcher, rearing back and firing again before a hitter could stop shaking from the previous pitch.

Did Gibson work fast? You'd better believe he worked fast. Here are two games I specifically remember, both against Cincinnati and both with Gary Nolan as the opposing starter:

June 15, 1968 (the third game of his famous June-July hot streak): In St. Louis (so it went 8 1/2 innings), 2-0 Cardinals (single runs in the 6th and 7th), time of game 1:42.

Sept. 2, 1968. In Cincinnati. 1-0 Cardinals in 10 innings. Gibson pitched all 10 innings. Nolan left after the 9th. The deciding blow: a solo HR by Julian Javier off Ted Abernathy. Time of game 2:26 this time - I remembered it as much shorter than that, but that's what bb-ref has.

Gibson was hit-lucky (BABIP lucky) that year, and as a consequence, run-lucky by DIPS theory. His RA+ isn't quite as impressive as his ERA+, although it's impressive enough for a guy with about 300 IP. On the other hand, by that RA+, he was win-unlucky by several games. They voted him the MVP anyway.

Even though you do have to take the context of the year into consideration, the season is still on the short list of the greatest single seasons any pitcher has had since 1920. I might take it as the best, although I do have my biases. Gooden 1985 is a good point of comparison.

I'm pretty sure Phillip Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy will all break that record this year.

And Pedroia.

But was he more feared than Jim Rice. <ducks>

1968 was a complete gag...more so than the so-called "steroid era".

23-year old Stan (The Bahnsen Burnout) Bahnsen threw 132 innings at Yankee Stadium to the tune of 1.77 ERA...and went 8-6!

Playing with numbers . . . I multiplied IP (actually, outs pitched) by ERA+ (minus 100) to factor workload and above average into the "best season" idea. Not surprisingly the high-inning deadball era dominated (I went back only through 1900 to avoid Hoss Radbourne and his friends), but Gibson in 1968 came in 3rd by that metric. He trailed only Walter Johnson (1913 and 1912, respectively) and had the only post-1915 season in the top 7. Pedro 2000 was 8th.

The second 20 had Gooden '85 11th, Maddux '94 and '95 at 12th and 15th (and who knows where he'd have finished in a strike-free 1994.) Grove '31 was 13th and Clemens '97 was 20th.

Gibson '68 was a season for all time.

Sandy,
check this. Specifically post #51.

Bahnsen threw 132 innings at Yankee Stadium to the tune of 1.77 ERA...and went 8-6!

well, gibby did lose nine games. that seems kind of unbelievable ...

Personally, while Gibson '68 was great, I believe that there have been several recent seasons that were better - Carlton '72, Guidry '78, Gooden '85, possibly Blue '71, maybe one or two from Maddux and Clemens. I don't think ERA+ works that well for a season that is that out of whack to begin with.

ERA
Martinez-BOS 1.74
Clemens-NYY 3.70
Mussina-BAL 3.79
Sirotka-CHW 3.79
Colon-CLE 3.88

Adjusted ERA+
Martinez-BOS 291
Sirotka-CHW 132
Clemens-NYY 130
Colon-CLE 127
Mussina-BAL 125

BB + H per IP (WHIP)
Martinez-BOS 0.737
Mussina-BAL 1.187
Hernandez-NYY 1.211
Hudson-OAK 1.241
Milton-MIN 1.245

(bb-ref)

127 years later, Keefe's 0.86 ERA remains magic number

In 1968, Gibby had Dal Maxvill and Curt Flood to pick it for him.

In 2000 Pedro had Jose Offerman and Jim Frye at 2B, Nomah at SS, a cast of 1000 third basemen, and the great Carl Evertt in center. The Sawx' other pitchers with over 100 IP had ERAs of 5.48, 4.78, 6.13, and 5.11.

In 2000 Pedro had Jose Offerman and Jim Frye at 2B, Nomah at SS, a cast of 1000 third basemen, and the great Carl Evertt in center.

Nomar was 4th in the league in ZR that year. Not that it takes away from your point, Everett was pretty bad as were the other guys you mentioned, I just wanted to stand up for Nomar.

Man, that 2000 Boston team is funny. How doe a team with a SS with a 155 OPS+ and a centerfielder with a 135 OPS+ finish with a team OPS+ of 90?

I just wanted to stand up for Nomar

Which is wonderfully thoughtful of you, given how often Nomar has not been able to stand up himself.

Pedro had a 291 ERA+ in 217 innings in 2000. Gibson's ERA in his last 234 innings of the 1968 season (June 6th through Game 7 of the World Series) was 0.96, good for a 302 ERA+. And he tacked another 97.2 innings of 1.66 ERA ball (175 ERA+) at the beginning of the season.

Yeah, certainly a significant reason for that difference is era, but you can't just write it off. He did pitch those innings. BP has Pedro with 132 PRAR, and Gibson with 131. In other words - take your pick, as it doesn't really matter.

Also, I'd like to mention that Gibson's peak is never mentioned outside of 1968 - he followed it up with years of 122 and 113 PRAR, winning a Cy Young for the latter season and losing out on one he deserved in '69 (though Seaver is hardly an indefensible choice and those 25 wins were shiny).

In 1968, Gibby had Dal Maxvill and Curt Flood to pick it for him.

That's if he kept it in the middle of the field - which maybe he did. If anyone pulled it, you had Mike Shannon (a converted outfielder) at one corner, and Orlando Cepeda (who didn't spend all that much energy concentrating on defense) at the other. And Lou Brock in LF wasn't exactly out there for his glove. (Brock could move, but was also error-prone.)

Answering Sandy River in post #8: I prefer to use RA+ rather than ERA+, and rather than just multiplying by innings, I convert innings into games (at 9 per) and convert games into wins by PythPat. Gibson gets pulled down a little by using RA+ instead of ERA+, and pulled down a little more by the way PythPat (rather than straight Pythag) handles low scoring environments. But the method does favor those with lots of IP. I then rank the seasons by equivalent FWP. Here's the post-WWII top 15 on that scale:

Gibson 1968 27-7
Gooden 1985 25-6
Carlton 1972 28-10
Clemens 1997 24-6
Perry 1972 27-11
Martinez 2000 21-3
Koufax 1966 26-10
Guidry 1978 24-7
Seaver 1971 24-8
Chance 1964 23-7
Maddux 1995 20-3
Koufax 1963 25-10
Blue 1971 25-10
Newhouser 1946 24-9
Roberts 1953 26-12

In 1968, Gibby had Dal Maxvill and Curt Flood to pick it for him.

That's if he kept it in the middle of the field - which maybe he did. If anyone pulled it, you had Mike Shannon (a converted outfielder) at one corner, and Orlando Cepeda (who didn't spend all that much energy concentrating on defense) at the other. And Lou Brock in LF wasn't exactly out there for his glove. (Brock could move, but was also error-prone.)

Answering Sandy River in post #8: I prefer to use RA+ rather than ERA+, and rather than just multiplying by innings, I convert innings into games (at 9 per) and convert games into wins by PythPat. Gibson gets pulled down a little by using RA+ instead of ERA+, and pulled down a little more by the way PythPat (rather than straight Pythag) handles low scoring environments. But the method does favor those with lots of IP. I then rank the seasons by equivalent FWP. Here's the post-WWII top 15 on that scale:

Gibson 1968 27-7
Gooden 1985 25-6
Carlton 1972 28-10
Clemens 1997 24-6
Perry 1972 27-11
Martinez 2000 21-3
Koufax 1966 26-10
Guidry 1978 24-7
Seaver 1971 24-8
Chance 1964 23-7
Maddux 1995 20-3
Koufax 1963 25-10
Blue 1971 25-10
Newhouser 1946 24-9
Roberts 1953 26-12

Ack - a triple post. First time I've ever done that. Site was acting really weird on me.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?share=1&n1=gibsobo01&year=1968&t=p#292:301:sum

June 6 to July 25. 10 starts. 90 innings. 0.20 ERA.

I don't get this "high mound" stuff. The mound was the same height in 1968 that it had been since 1950. What does that have to do with why scoring was low in 1968?

Maybe my strongest memory from the streak that davoarid refers to was the June 26 game against the Pirates. I remember listening to it in the duguout of a youth baseball field. Of course, my memory wasn't quite right. Here's the 9th inning from the gamelog:

Top of the 9th, Pirates Batting, Behind 0-3, Bob Gibson facing 1-2-3
--- M Wills Single to 3B/Bunt
OO 1-- G Kolb Ground Ball Double Play: SS-1B
O --- R Clemente Strikeout
0 runs, 1 hit, 0 errors, 0 LOB. Pirates 0, Cardinals 3.

I remembered it as him allowing two baserunners and then striking out Clemente representing the tying run - which isn't what happened. I was right about the last out being a strikeout of Clemente, at least. And he faced just three batters over the minimum.

[It was Clemente who broke Gibson's leg just a year earlier - if anyone ever recovered quickly and totally from a bad sounding injury, it was Gibson in that case.]

After that June 26 game, Gibson had a 47-inning scoreless inning streak, with 5 shutouts in a row. (Harry Caray kept trying to make it 48 by claiming the 7th inning of his last non-shutout game in which he'd allowed a run with no outs and then finished the inning. Hard to believe that even Harry thought that was legit.) He had one more game to go to catch Drydale's record set earlier that very year of 6 shutouts and 54 innings.

The very next game was against Drysdale - and Gibson allowed a first-inning run, with the run scoring on a wild pitch. And then he slammed the door again, a complete game 5-1 victory. And another shutout. And a run scoring on a bloop in a late-inning blowout. And two more shutouts. davoarid stopped after 10 games, but he allowed only 1 run in a complete game in the 11th game of the streak, so 99 innings, 3 runs.

davoarid stopped after 10 games, but he allowed only 1 run in a complete game in the 11th game of the streak, so 99 innings, 3 runs.

Well, he didn't want to sully the streak by adding in a pitiful 1.00 ERA game.

Has there ever been a better 10 game stretch by a starter in recorded baseball history?
Has anyone ever gotten close to Gibson's summer run?

I don't get this "high mound" stuff. The mound was the same height in 1968 that it had been since 1950. What does that have to do with why scoring was low in 1968?

No, it wasn't the same height. There was no monitoring of mound heights, and as teams discovered advantages from piling their mounds higher, they did so. As the 1960s advanced it became ever more significant, especially in certain venues, particularly Dodger Stadium.

particularly Dodger Stadium

Yes...if I'm not mistaken, George Mallory was using the mound for a trial run...and Mallory's body was not found until 1999!

Well, he didn't want to sully the streak by adding in a pitiful 1.00 ERA game.

It raised his ERA for the season!

No, it wasn't the same height. There was no monitoring of mound heights, and as teams discovered advantages from piling their mounds higher, they did so. As the 1960s advanced it became ever more significant, especially in certain venues, particularly Dodger Stadium.

as Rocky Bridges said: "I don't wanna say the mound was too high, but when I pitch batting practice, I gotta chew gum"

Has anyone ever gotten close to Gibson's summer run?

I don't think so. The two most likely competitors would be Dutch Leonard's 0.96 ERA season & Walter Johnson's 1.14 ERA in 1913.

I don't have the stats for either one, but here's how many runs their teams allowed in their starts.

First, here's Leonard - he allowed 34 runs (24 earned) on the year -- and that included several relief appearnaces. In the games he started, Boston allowed 46 runs, so at least a dozen (and almost certainly more) of them came off of someone else. He had 25 starts - here they are broken up into groups of five:

1, 1, 1, 1, 0
0, 2, 5, 6, 2
1, 0, 0, 1, 6
4, 0, 6, 0, 1
0, 1, 1, 3, 3

And Walter Johnson in 1913 - 36 starts (plus numerous relief appearances). He allowed 44 earned runs & 56 runs altogether. Opponent scored 88 in his starts so take that into account:
1, 0, 0, 0, 0
5, 1, 5, 2, 1
4, 0, 0, 3, 4
0, 14, 0, 0, 0
4, 1, 2, 2, 3
7, 1, 1, 1, 6
0, 2, 1, 1, 2
0

One reason I'm willing to do this is that in his glory stretch, Gibson completed all 10 starts & allowed zero earned runs. By the same standards of the above charts, his stretch looked like:
0, 0, 0, 0, 0
1, 0, 1, 0, 0

No one has ever done that.

Has there ever been a better 10 game stretch by a starter in recorded baseball history?

It depends if you believe in adjusting for context or not. Bob Gibson pitched in one of the most favorable pitching environments in nearly 100 years. I'm guessing that if you looked at Guidry or Gooden or Pedro, or some others, and figured out a way to adjust for context, you'd find other stretches that were just as good.

It depends if you believe in adjusting for context or not. Bob Gibson pitched in one of the most favorable pitching environments in nearly 100 years. I'm guessing that if you looked at Guidry or Gooden or Pedro, or some others, and figured out a way to adjust for context, you'd find other stretches that were just as good.

I find this exceptionally unlikely. His ERA was 0.20. League ERA was 2.99 on the year. It was a slight pitchers park giving him an ERA+ of 1450 over 90 IP. Yeah, try to find Ron Guidry doing that.

Sure it's 1968, but it's also 2 runs allowed in 10 starts. That's insane.

Sure it's 1968, but it's also 2 runs allowed in 10 starts. That's insane.

and you can bet he plunked the two guys who got the RBIs next time he faced them

As Chris Dial noted in #9, and King Solomon wrote 3,000 years ago, "There is no new thing under the sun." However, I prefer to filter out the league average and use only that part of ERA+ above 100. My (very debatable) assumption is that additional IP at ERA+ 100 neither adds nor subtracts value when comparing pitchers' seasons. Using ERA+ and IP (or outs) fits the KISS principle for me. To make the metric a 2 or 3 digit number, I use outs and divide by 1000. Here's my top 21 since 1900 - after post #8 I found the Ed Walsh with 369.7 IP and ERA+ of 189 was 19th, displacing Roger to 21st.
Walter Johnson 1913......165.0
Walter Johnson 1912......157.2
Bob Gibson 1968...........144.4
Pete Alexander 1915......141.1
Christy Mathewson 1905.132.1
Cy Young 1901..............129.2
Mordecai Brown 1906.....127.3
Pedro Martinez 2000......124.3
Dutch Leonard 1914.......120.6
Walter Johnson 1918......111.5 (10th)
Dwight Gooden 1985......106.2
Greg Maddux 1994.........103.6
Lefty Grove 1931...........103.1
Addie Joss 1908.............102.4
Greg Maddux 1995.........101.9
Christy Mathewson 1909.100.8
Jack Taylor 1902.............99.3 (1st I'd ever heard of him.)
Walter Johnson 1919.......99.3
Ed Walsh 1910................98.7
Dolf Luque 1923..............97.6 (20th)
Roger Clemens 1997.......95.8

Some other seasons that have been mentioned (without numerical rank, as there are likely some in-betweeners I haven't calculated.)
Pedro 1999.........91.5
Newhouser 1945..89.3
Koufax 1966........87.2
Carlton 1972.......86.2
Hubbell 1933.......86.1

It depends if you believe in adjusting for context or not. Bob Gibson pitched in one of the most favorable pitching environments in nearly 100 years. I'm guessing that if you looked at Guidry or Gooden or Pedro, or some others, and figured out a way to adjust for context, you'd find other stretches that were just as good.

So Bonds' 2001 HR mark isn't really the greatest HR season because it was easier to hit HRs?

Sure it's 1968, but it's also 2 runs allowed in 10 starts. That's insane.

That's true. But I also found lots of examples of pitchers going on great runs, such as giving up 6 runs in 9 starts in 1985, or 5 in 8 starts in an extreme hitting environment (2000), which are also insane. Personally, I believe giving up one run in 9 innings in 2000 is more impressive than giving up none in 1968, and I believe giving up 2 runs in 2000 is more impressive than giving up 1 in 1968. I've said it before, but I don't think ERA+ or RA+ work particularly well in making the adjustments at these level of extremes.

So Bonds' 2001 HR mark isn't really the greatest HR season because it was easier to hit HRs?

Maybe, maybe not. Ruth in 1920 and 1921 was pretty impressive. Are you really telling me you don't believe in adjusting for park and era when evaluating performance?

But I also found lots of examples of pitchers going on great runs, such as giving up 6 runs in 9 starts in 1985

That's 3 times as many runs allowed in fewer starts - and I bet this mystery man wasn't completing every game, either.

Personally, I believe giving up one run in 9 innings in 2000 is more impressive than giving up none in 1968,

Terrific - we're not talking about 1 game. We're talking about 10 starts. The best you can find is a guy giving up 250% more runs in 80% as many starts. Advantage, Gibson - and not just a small advantage either.

At any rate - in 1968, there were 339 shutouts. Teams won 100% of those games. I don't have 2000 with me, but I do have 2004, a similarly offensive season. That year, there were 436 1-run games - teams went 401-35 in those games - a .920 winning percentage.

and I believe giving up 2 runs in 2000 is more impressive than giving up 1 in 1968.

Teams went 421-82 when allowing 1-run in 1968; a .837 winning percentage.

Teams went 476-112 when allowing 2-runs in 2004; a .810 winning percentage.

In those ten starts, Bob Gibson gave the opposition a 0% chance to win. In his other two starts he gave them a 16.3% chance each time. On average, over a 10 start period, opponents had a 3.3% chance to win when Bob Gibson started, based on the odds of winning when scoring 0-1 runs.

Can you find anyone in any season that gave his team a 96.7% chance to win over 10 straight starts?

In those ten starts, Bob Gibson gave the opposition a 0% chance to win.

That's not quite true. He couldn't pitch forever, and there was no gaurantee his team would score any runs. I don't know how to look up the numbers, but it's obvious that teams whose starter pitched 9 scoreless innings in 1968 did not win 100% of their games.

In 2000 Pedro had Jose Offerman and Jim Frye at 2B, Nomah at SS, a cast of 1000 third basemen, and the great Carl Evertt in center. The Sawx' other pitchers with over 100 IP had ERAs of 5.48, 4.78, 6.13, and 5.11.

Yet the Red Sox still allowed the second lowest BABIP in the AL.

...but it's obvious that teams whose starter pitched 9 scoreless innings in 1968 did not win 100% of their games.

See my post #3 above about the fate of Gary Nolan on Sept. 2.

It's not all THE STREAK in the case of Gibson's season. For one thing, he did throw 5 more shutouts in the last third of the season after the streak was over. It also turns out that he was reasonably well-supported by the Cardinals' offense during the streak and quite poorly supported outside of it.

In his first 11 starts, Gibson pitched 97 2/3 innings and allowed 23 runs - a RA of 2.12. His relief pitchers allowed one more run, so the Cardinals gave up 24 runs in the 11 games. They scored 23, or 2.09 per game. The team record was 6-5, with Gibson's individual record being 4-4. Call his first two games "tough no-decisions" (the Cardinals won both) although they are also the only two games in which Gibson pitched only 7 innings. He had no shutouts in this first part of the season, although he did hold the opposition to 1 run in 6 of the 11 starts.

The next 11 starts are the streak: 99 innings, 3 runs, RA 0.27. His teammates scored a relatively generous 46 runs in those 11 games, or 4.18 per game.

In his final 12 starts, Gibson pitched 108 innings and allowed 23 runs, for a RA of 1.92. (His relief allowed one more run). His teammates scored 34 runs, or 2.83 per game. His record - identical to the team record - was 7-5.

So 2.09 R/G support in the first third, 4.18 R/G support during the streak, and 2.83 R/G support in the last third. Not exactly optimized.

His games that season include losses of 1-0, 1-0, 2-0, and 2-1.

One thing that jumps out at you in looking at the gamelogs: in that last third of the season, he just wasn't managed like a mere mortal, and the extreme deference shown to Gibson may have cost the Cardinals a game or two. (Not that it matters in pennant terms.)

On August 4, he came into the top of the 9th with a 4-3 lead over the Cubs and the bottom of the order due up. He gave up a HR to Al Spangler that forced extra innings. He then stayed in through 11, giving up a run in the top of the 11th. The Cardinals scored in the bottom of the 11th but lost in 13.

On August 24, he had a 4-0 lead going into the 7th against Pittsburgh. He gave up a 3-run HR to Willie Stargell in the 7th - after which he stayed in another inning to give up the tying run in the 8th, and then stayed in to give up two more runs (unearned - Maxvill let him down) in the 9th to lose it. (He gave up 5 or more runs three times, and I've just named two of them.)

On Sept. 11, he had a 5-3 lead going into the 9th against the Dodgers, He stayed for the 9th and gave up three hits and a run, but the game survived.

He gave up the losing run in the bottom of the 8th in a tie game on Sept. 22.

You'd think that in at least some of those cases, Joe Hoerner (or maybe Ron Willis) might have been a little more effective at that point in the game. And it's not like Hoerner was overworked - he pitched great that year, and only had 48 2/3 innings. But the mindset had established itself - you just don't relieve the great Bob Gibson no matter what.