it comes from 2016 topps, and celebrates zack greinke's 45 and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings streak from the previous season. there are a couple of things i find interesting here, but let me begin by saying i was appreciative of topps including greinke in this insert set that also featured the likes of lou gehrig, cal ripken jr, babe ruth, ken griffey jr, and nolan ryan to name a few. greinke was a stud for the dodgers - maybe the drysdale to clayton kershaw's koufax?
speaking of big d, when his then-record of consecutive scoreless innings was reduced from 58 and two-thirds innings to 58, i recall him being ticked at elias sports bureau. this happened shortly before orel hershiser broke the record with 59 scoreless innings in a row, so the issue went away, and it was great to see drysdale on hand to interview hershiser in san diego after the record breaking performance ended.
however, when i saw the number on greinke's card, i immediately wondered if pitchers were once again being credited with partial innings even if the opposing team scored in that inning (this was the issue with drysdale as he gave up a run after recording two outs in the inning and the elias statistician said that he would therefore not get credit for a scoreless inning or part thereof). since greinke didn't pitch in relief at all as a dodger, i figured partial innings were back.
i flipped the card over to see if drysdale got his two-thirds of an inning back and found this:
oddly enough, a recent post on mlb.com shows that greinke remains credited with a partial inning of scoreless pitching, while drysdale and gibson are not extended the same courtesy. and, in case you are wondering, greinke was still pitching when that run scored to end his streak, so that wouldn't be the reason for the partial inning. statistics shouldn't be subjective. so weird.
I remember Hershiser's scoreless innings streak. Bulldog was untouchable that year. And in case anyone at Topps is reading this it was post-1961 expansion. Boy do they need some new fact checkers.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cool card and a fun memory
ReplyDeleteI never knew about the controversy with partial innings. If a guy gets two outs in an inning and then gives up a run, he should be credited with those 2/3s as scoreless. It just seems logical.
ReplyDeleteThis really shouldn't be that difficult with all of the information we have available today.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder how old the card company employees in charge of research and back bios are? And judging by how many mistakes keep being made, I'm guessing that the majority of them are 30 and under.
ReplyDeleteDrysdale and Dangerfield don't get no respect. No respect at all.
ReplyDeleteit seems like everyone is in some sort of hurry to make all of the old records go away. If someone from the last three years doesn't own it, it isn't important.
ReplyDeleteHistory matters.