Here's Baker to Buck... and the pitch...

by Jon Marthaler on Sep 1, 2007 2:50 AM EDT in News

I still think #1 was a strike. And maybe #5 too. Mr. Plate Umpire Jim Wolf, can't we get a little bit of help here?

Baker's final line: 9 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 9 K. His game score for the night was 93, the fifth-best start in the league this year. The four that were better were Buehrle and Verlander's no-hitters, Santana's 17K game, and Erik Bedard's 15K game. Had Baker finished the perfect game, he still would have been short of Bedard's score.

The last time a Twins pitcher tossed a perfect game would be, well, two days before never. Unless you relax the rules a little bit. In which case we can go back to August 6, 1967, when the Twins' Dean Chance set down the first 15 Red Sox to come to the plate, then watched as the rain came and washed out the game exactly one out after it became official.

Chance's final line was 5 IP, 4 K, 0 ER, 0 H, 0 BB. Over time, it's been knocked down from "perfect" to "trivia point," but it's the nearest thing the Twins have to a perfect game in team history.

Or did have, until tonight.

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Comments

Er..

A perfect game with 9+ strikeouts doesn't beat Bedard's score? My "stupid statistic" siren is blaring on this one. Shouldn't matter how the outs are recorded if you never allow a flippin' baserunner.

Replace Nick Punto.

by rayken on Sep 1, 2007 2:55 AM EDT reply actions

And yes

The first pitch is a strike 95% of the time.

Replace Nick Punto.

by rayken on Sep 1, 2007 2:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Game Scores

I don't make the rules. Although I should point out that Baker could have beat Bedard by striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth. Unlikely, maybe, but I'm just saying.

Game scores are obviously imperfect - is a hit really twice as damaging as a walk? Should a strikeout and a walk cancel each other out - but it's easily understandable and generally pretty good at ranking starts. I agree with you that a perfect game should top just about everything, but I suppose this might be the most perfect metric we'll get.

by Jon Marthaler on Sep 1, 2007 3:01 AM EDT up reply actions

THose

It's too bad he lost his control a bit at the end. i didn't disagree with any of the umps calls...

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Sep 1, 2007 4:36 AM EDT reply actions

I

really though he was gonna do it. at the very least the no-hitter. I was feeling it for sure.

by TMoney on Sep 1, 2007 5:17 AM EDT reply actions

Jinx

I realize that superstition shouldn't (really) play a role, but the Twins announcers were throwing Baker under the jinx bus. On the radio, Dazzle blurted the P word twice in the 6th, and Gordon did it in the 7th. I didn't see the game on TV, but my brother in MN said that Bert was doing the same thing in the 6th and 7th. Shouldn't these guys know better?

by ms23 on Sep 1, 2007 10:17 AM EDT reply actions