Last season, as was reported in the Gold Mine, the Cincinnati Reds won 24 games that were started by Aaron Harang—the most wins in the major leagues behind any one pitcher.   Not all of those wins were credited to Harang, but his “individual” won-lost record was a handsome 16-6.

            So he wins yesterday, and he is now 3-9.   He hasn’t pitched all that badly, or, come to think of it, badly at all, but whereas last year he was always in the right stadium at the right time, this year he’s consistently been on the wrong mound after the batting practice.  I got to thinking about historic wipeouts by pitchers, and how you would score them.

            Suppose you multiply Harang’s Wins last year (16) by his Losses this year (9); that’s 144.   Multiply his Losses last year (6) by his Wins this year (3); that’s 18.   His Wipeout Score this year is 18 to 144, or –126; we’ll call it 126, since the minus sign is a constant.   It’s not a historic wipeout now, but if he could finish, let’s say, 6-18, that would give him a Wipeout Score of 252, which would be the highest in the majors since 2000.

            And, as you know, twentieth century baseball records no longer exist, since they were all wiped out by the Millenium Bug.   No, since Wipeout Scores are based on Wins and Losses and the biggest Won and Lost numbers all belong to the ancients, all of the biggest Wipeout Scores belong to 19th century pitchers.   These are the biggest by decade:

            Will White in 1879 was 43-19.   In 1880 he was 18-42—a Wipeout Score of 1296, which is by far the largest of all time. 

            Charlie Buffinton in 1885 dropped from 48-16 to 22-27—a wipeout score of 944, the second-largest of all time.

            Silver King in 1891 dropped from 30-22 to 14-29; there’s a league change involved, but I don’t want to get into it.   Wipeout Score of 562.

            Long Tom Hughes was 20-7 with the World Champion Red Sox in 1903.  Jumping to the Highlanders that winter, he dropped to 9-24 in 1904—a Wipeout Score of 417. 

            Jack Quinn, 26-14 in 1914, dropped to 9-22 in 1915, a Wipeout Score of 446.  He was out of the majors in twenty years. 

            Joe Oeschger was a 20-game winner in 1921 (20-14), the year after he engaged in the famous 26-inning duel with Leon Cadore.   But the year after that he was 6-21, a Wipeout Score of 336.   He never won more than 5 games again. 

            Lefty Gomez in 1934 dropped from 26-5 to 12-15 (Wipeout Score of 330).

            Bobo Newsom in 1941 dropped from 21-5 to 12-20 (Wipeout Score of 360).   There is no truth to the rumor that Bobo had reported seeing a lemur after the 1940 World Series. 

            Bob Friend in 1958 went 22-14; in 1959 he dropped to 8-19.  He probably pitched as well in 1959 as he had in 1958, but his wipeout score (306) was still the highest of the decade.

            With the Cubs in the mid-sixties, Dick Ellsworth followed a stellar 22-10 campaign with a 14-18 stinker (1964).   His teammate that second season, Larry Jackson, picked up the slack, going 24-11—but then won the wipeout trophy for the sixties with a 14-21 mark in ’65 (Wipeout Score of 350).  That gave the ’65 Cubs two aces—Jackson (14-21) and Ellsworth (14-15). 

            I have written about this season numerous times before, so won’t again, but Steve Carlton underwent a severe personality transplant after falling from 27-10 in 1972—a year in which he was certainly one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived—to 13-20 in 1973.  His wipeout score (410) is the highest in the majors since 1920. 

            Frank Viola was Cy Young in 1988, going 24-7; the next year he was 13-17, a Wipeout Score of 317. 

            Bob Welch in 1990 was 27-6, although anybody who was paying close attention knew that he wasn’t really that good.  The next year he was 12-13—a Wipeout Score of 279. 

            Jamie Moyer, 21-7 in 2003, was 7-13 in 2004—the biggest Wipeout Score (224) of our new century.  

            A not-very-interesting list, but I had to run it. To be eligible for the list a pitcher has to have a losing record the second year, a winning record the first.

It is astonishing, really, how many guys have won the Cy Young Award, and how many guys didn’t but could have, who have just totally wet the bed (thank you, Kobe) the next season.   The 1962 Reds had Bob Purkey (23-5) and Joey Jay (21-14).  The next year they went 6-10 and 7-18—and yet the ’63 Reds, remarkably, won 86 games and hung in the pennant race into September.  Bob Turley, Vern Law, Denny McLain, Pete Vuckovich, Mike McCormick and Mark Davis all did terrible pratfalls after a Cy Young season—Randy Johnson, too, but in Randy’s case it was after a long string of Cy Young seasons.   That’s more like Warren Spahn in ’64 or Juan Marichal in ’72 than an actual wipeout.   Even a Hall of Fame run has to run out sometime. 

            Johnny Antonelli wiped out three times.   After being perhaps the best pitcher in baseball in 1954 (21-7, 2.29 ERA) he was under .500 in 1955 (14-16).   After recovering to go 20-13 in 1956 he dropped 18 games in 1957 (12-18).   After going 19-10 in 1959, he dropped to 6-7 in 1960—effectively ending his career.   A similar career was Bret Saberhagen, who wiped out twice after Cy Young Awards, following a 20-6 season (1985) with 7-12, and 23-6 (1989) with 5-9.  Between those two he did one of the greatest mid-season wipeouts of all time.   At the All-Star break in ’87 he was 15-3 with a 2.49 ERA.  The second half he was 3-7 with a 4.61 ERA.  

            The little lefthander Bobby Shantz won the American League MVP Award with the Philadelphia A’s in 1952, going 24-7.  The next year he was 5-9.   The bigger lefthander Vida Blue won the American League MVP with the same franchise in 1971 (two stops later), going an almost-identical 24-8.  The next season, after a nasty salary battle, he was an almost-identical 6-10.

            Jim Lonborg, Cy Young winner and World Series hero with a 22-9 mark in 1967, wiped out literally that winter—skiing accident—and finished 6-10 in ’68, the same as Vida Blue in ’72.

Don Newcombe, winner of the first Cy Young Award after going 27-7 in 1956, got rocked in the World Series (ERA of 21.21), started drinking heavily that winter, and was 11-12 in ’57. 

            Sammy Ellis in 1965 went 22-10, perhaps pitching more innings than he was really prepared by training and experience to pitch.   The next year he was 12-19, and he never had another winning season.   A very similar season was by Ron Bryant in 1973—24-12, although he pitched no shutouts, walked 115, struck out only 143 and had an unimpressive 3.53 ERA. The next year things caught up with him, and he finished an ugly 3-15.  He never won a game after that season.  Ellis at least won some more games; Bryant never tasted victory again. 

            The same year Steve Carlton went from 27-10 to 13-20, Stan Bahnsen also followed a 20-win season with a 20-loss season, although he had to pitch a billion innings to do it, 21-16 to 18-21.   Back in the old days, when pitchers would win 20 games with some regularity, a good many pitchers followed 20-win seasons with 20-loss seasons, among them

• Roscoe Miller in 1903 (23-13 to 7-20),
• Togie Pittenger in 1903 (27-16 to 18-22), 
• Long Tom Hughes in 1904 (listed above),
• Al Orth in 1907 (27-17 to 14-21),
• Russ Ford in 1911 (22-11 to 13-21),
• Howie Camnitz in 1913 (22-12 to 9-20),
• Rube Marquard in 1914 (23-10 to 12-22),
• Jack Quinn in 1915 (listed above),
• Eppa Rixey in 1917 (22-10 to 16-21),
• Hooks Dauss in 1920 (21-9 to 13-21),
• Joe Oeschger in 1922 (listed above),
• Bobo Newsom in 1941 (listed above),
• Murry Dickson in 1952 (20-16 to 14-21),
• Mel Stottlemyre in 1965 (20-9 to 12-20),
• Larry Jackson in 1965 (listed above)
• Luis Tiant in 1969 (21-9, 9-20),
• Steve Carlton in 1973 (listed above),
• Stan Bahnsen in 1973 (listed above),
• and Jerry Koosman (21-10 in 1976, 8-20 in 1977). 

And I probably missed some. . .I was kind of looking for those scatter-shot.  Alex Kellner, 20-12 as a rookie in 1948, was 8-20 in 1949.   Eight-and-twenty appears to be the favorite record for good pitchers having lousy years. 

            Noodles Hahn in 1900 dropped from 23-8 to 16-20—in part because the consolidation of the National League, with four teams dropping out and the best players concentrated on just eight teams, was a lot tougher in 1900 than it was in 1899. 

            George McConnell, 25-10 in the Federal League in 1915, pitched in the same park in 1916, but with a different team in a different league, and with much different results: 4-12 with the Cubs. 

            Steve Gromek went 19-9 in 1945—dropped to 5-15 in 1946, when Ted Williams and friends returned from military service. 

            You see, the thing is that we’re always looking for cause and effect, so we always wind up seeing cause and effect, whether it is there or not.   Steve Gromek goes 19-9 during World War II, then goes 5-15 after the war is over, so it’s easy for us to say that he was never really very good, it was just the war years, all the good players were toting firearms.   It’s easy for us to say that Noodles Hahn dropped off because the league consolidated its talent and George McConnell dropped off because he was facing better hitters and Bobo Newsom dropped off because he saw a lemur, but the reality is that the same sorts of things happen every year, whether there is a war ending or not.   The human mind is damned to see cause and effect in everything that happens.   This is why we can never understand the world. 

            Chief Bender, 17-3 with the American League champion Philadelphia A’s in 1914, jumped to the Federal League in 1915 and was  4-16—a whopping 650-point drop in winning percentage, while going from the “strong” league to the startup league. 

             Art Houtteman, just 22 years old when he went 19-12 in 1950, missed 1951 due to military obligations—and lost 20 games when he returned in 1952 (our old friend, 8-20). 

            Jim Merritt, after going 20-12 in 1970, was 1-11 in 1971, leading the Reds in a plunge from 102 wins to sub-.500.  

Wayne Garland signed a ten-year contract with the Indians after he went 20-7 in 1976.   He went 13-19 in ’77, and never won more than six games again. 

            Kevin Tapani, 19-9 with the Cubs in 1998, was 6-12 in ’99. 

            Jose Lima, 21-10 in 1999, celebrated the new millenium with a 7-16 log.

Omar (You Beautiful) Daal dropped that same season from 16-9 to 4-19.  

These are not historic wipeouts, but they’re recent, and I figured Aaron Harang could relate to them.   And I thought perhaps he could use the company.