Last night Tampa Bay's Edwin Jackson lasted 1/3 of an inning, giving up five runs, five hits, two walks, and two home runs. Currently his ERA stands at 8.20 along with a gaudy 0-8 win/loss record. Anthony Reyes of the St. Louis Cardinals was also 0-8 upon his return to the minors. Four pitchers in the Majors collected ten or more wins in a season without a loss. How about on the opposite end, the pitchers with the most losses in a season without a win? Are Jackson and Reyes close?

1    Terry Felton             1982       13        0     4.99      -11   
T2   Russ Miller              1928       12        0     5.42      -12   
T2   Steve Gerkin             1945       12        0     3.62       -4   
4    Charlie Stecher          1890       10        0    10.32      -48   
T5   Tom Tuckey               1909        9        0     4.25      -17   
T5   Rod Beck                 1996        9        0     3.34        6   
T5   Heathcliff Slocumb       1997        9        0     5.16       -4   
T5   Earl Hamilton            1917        9        0     3.14       -5   
T5   Stump Wiedman            1880        9        0     3.40      -15   
T5   Edgar Gonzalez           2004        9        0     9.32      -25

Very close. The first column is the season, second is number of losses, third is wins, fourth is Earned Run Average and fifth is Runs Saved Above Average (RSAA). RSAA simply measures the runs above or below what a pitcher with a league average ERA would have allowed in similar innings. Rod Beck immediately strikes me as he pitched well in 1996, posting a 3.34 ERA. Looking at his gamelogs from that season, Beck entered the game just 7 times with his teams behind, 6 times with the game tied and 50 times with his team ahead. Talk about being setup to fail.

Terry Felton is baseball's hard luck man. Felton pitched in three other seasons for the Minnesota Twins, finishing with an 0-16 record.

Jackson is close, but the problem is that pitchers of this nature are unlikely to continue pitching. He may well have pitched himself out of the rotation in favor of Jason Hammel at this point. If Jackson is out, he falls well short of the mark of pitching futility. The standard remains Steve Blass, who lasted 88.7 innings with an ERA of 9.85 in 1973.

Rain Delay

Most of you know I went to Raw on Monday. Tuesday I attended the Scranton/Durham game, on assignment from Baseball Info Solutions. I've been working my other job 730-5 all week, so the lack of sleep Monday night hurt. Still I figured, at least I'd get home a bit earlier from the game, right? Rain was in the forecast, but I didn't figure they would wait two hours to finish up a game. In the top of the eighth, the game resumed with maybe 50 fans in attendance, along with the stadium staff. All for seven more outs of baseball. Dustin Mohr created a scare in the ninth when he hit a home run shot 20 feet foul. Imagine that game going into extra innings. With such a small crowd, you can hear the game chatter from the field. It's certainly a unique experience and I like it in a way. It's too bad you have to sit through crappy weather to get to it.