Manny Parra of the Brewers pitched the last 6 1/3 innings of his team's 8-5 loss to the Mets in Milwaukee. No NL pitcher had thrown at least six innings of relief since Carlos Villanueva of the Brewers did back on September 15, 2006 in Washington.
Long relief stretches are more common in the AL where the DH rule allows a manager to avoid to deal with possible pinch hit situations. Five AL pitchers had already pitched at least six innings in relief this year.
Parra also batted twice as a reliever, but that is not that unusual. Bob Shaw of the White Sox batted SIX times in a game on April 22, 1959 while pitching in relief of starter Early Wynn.
The fact that one guy batted six times as a reliever doesn't prove that batting as a reliever is commonplace. Maybe that was the only other time in history that someone batted as a reliever? What we really need to do is figure out the percentage of games each year that a reliever bats. What would be considered rare? 5%? 2%? Has it changed over the years?
Yeah, I know, I'm being pedantic, but if I had the time to look into writing scripts to access the historical data, I could figure it out!
The two greatest long relief appearances I remember both come with asterisks and were both by future Hall of Famers.
Pedro Martinez' five perfect innings in the 1999(?) Division Series against Cleveland, and the Randy Johnson game where he struck out 16 batters in relief of Curt Schilling.
6 - I've probably mentioned it on here before, but I was actually at both parts of that second game back in 2001 at Qualcomm. I think my favorite part was the big fireball.
Yeah, I know, I'm being pedantic, but if I had the time to look into writing scripts to access the historical data, I could figure it out!
Parra had the 12th one of this year.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/eZA9
vr, Xei
Pedro Martinez' five perfect innings in the 1999(?) Division Series against Cleveland, and the Randy Johnson game where he struck out 16 batters in relief of Curt Schilling.
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/features/flashbacks/06_23_1917.stm
27 up, 27 down, in relief of some guy named Ruth.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.