Monday, August 12, 2024

Christy Mathewson once pitched 1 and a third innings to get a relief win (3 days after getting a complete game win) and then pitched a complete game shutout the next day

He was born on this date in 1880.

Here is a stretch of his games from 1911:

5-23) Wins complete game with 2 runs allowed 

5-26) 1.2 IP for relief win (no hits or walks) (Grover Cleveland Alexander also pitched in relief in that 5-26 game)

5-27) Complete game shutout (that is the next day after the relief win)

Click here to see his 1911 game logs from Baseball Reference

NY Times headline about 5-26 game "'GIANTS IN PERIL; MATTY RESCUES THEM; With Score Tied and Two Men on Bases "Big Six" Breaks Up Phillies' Rally."

Click here to read The NY Times article. You might have to be a subscriber to read it.

The Phillies had two men on in the 8th and had scored 2 runs to tie the game at 3-3 when Matty came in. The Giants scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to win 5-3. Matty pitched a scoreless 9th. The Giants came into the day in 2nd place, 1 game behind the Phillies.

Here are brief excerpts from the Times article:

 

 

He started 37 games that year (297.1 IP) and had 8 relief appearances. In relief he was 2-0 with 3 saves.

Here are some some relief stats:

IP  11
H  5
R  2
ER  0 (not sure if 0 is right since ERs were not tallied for all games)
SO  2
BB  2
AVG  .143
OBP  .143
SLG  .143

Five of his relief appearances were in September. The Giants were in a pennant race, beginning the month 3.5 games ahead. It fell to just 1.0 games and was still just a 4 game lead at the end of play on Sept. 14 with 26 games left.

Things eased up for the Giants because by the end of Sept. they were 6.5 games ahead. They actually played 12 regular season games in Oct. for some reason and were up by at least 7.5 games the whole month.

He pitched in 12 games from Sept. 1-Oct. 4. In 7 starts he had 60 IP. In those 5 relief appearances in Sept. he had 2.2 IP with 2 saves. Overall in the 62.2 IP, he allowed just 14 total runs, 49 hits and 7 walks.

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