Sunday, April 20, 2014

Game of the Day (4/19/84)

Blue Jays 2, Orioles 1. Toronto pitched Jim Clancy, Baltimore Scott McGregor. Both men were franchise stalwarts who earned most of their black ink in negative categories (Clancy led the league in walks once, and was on his way to a league topping total in earned runs allowed in '84; McGregor would pace the AL in homers allowed a season later).

As you'd expect based on the final score, the pitchers were both effective throughout the game. Clancy was perfect in the first, while McGregor allowed one-out singles to Lloyd Moseby and George Bell before escaping. Baltimore drew first blood in the second when John Lowenstein and Ken Singleton both walked and Joe Nolan singled Lowenstein home. McGregor permitted a Garth Iorg single and nothing else in the home second, and Clancy threw a 1-2-3 third. The bottom of the third started with a Damaso Garcia base hit, but a popup, a force, a steal and a flyout brought the inning to a scoreless close.

Eddie Murray and Lowenstein opened the fourth with consecutive singles, but Clancy then induced three consecutive fly balls to center. Toronto tied the game in the bottom of the inning when Willie Upshaw doubled and Iorg singled him home. Todd Cruz led off the fifth with a double and was sacrificed to third, but the next two hitters failed to bring him around; Moseby singled in the bottom of the inning but was caught stealing. The teams again had one runner apiece reach in the sixth; the other Orioles couldn't advance Singleton after his hit, and Jesse Barfield was removed on a double play.

The abortive rallies continued in the seventh. The top half saw Nolan walk and Lenn Sakata single before John Shelby hit into a double play, while the bottom brought an Iorg single that was cancelled out when he too was thrown out trying for second. Cal Ripken walked and stole second in the eighth, then saw Lowenstein walk behind him. Singleton then flied to right, and Lowenstein was doubled off of first on the play to end the inning. Garcia singled and was bunted to second, then took third on a fly ball before being left there, and the game progressed to the ninth still even at a run apiece.

The top of the ninth saw Nolan single with one out. Al Bumbry pinch ran and made it to second on a groundout, but progressed no further. Upshaw started the bottom of the inning with a single, and one out later, Iorg hit a walkoff triple (which is a pretty rare play).

As of the beginning of the 2014 season, the current active leader in complete games is CC Sabathia, with 37. Jim Clancy completed exactly twice that many in his fairly long, solid-but-not-great career; Scott McGregor, whose career was shorter and not particularly better than Clancy's, completed even more starts (83). Both of them completed this game, despite the fact that they combined for all of 6 strikeouts and each allowed at least 12 baserunners, with only two perfect innings between them (and none after the third).

A double complete game on its own would be a significant rarity in 2014. One featuring two middle-of-the-rotation types who had to keep working out of jam after jam? Unheard of. Which makes this not only a good game, but a great example of the changes in the sport in the last 30 years.

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