Game of the Day (5/7/91)

Expos 3, Giants 2 (15). San Francisco's Kelly Downs was a kind-of-OK pitcher who was approaching the end of a relatively short career that was mostly, but not entirely, spent in the rotation. Montreal's Chris Nabholz was a kind-of-OK pitcher who was just beginning a relatively short career that was mostly, but not entirely, spent in the rotation.

Game of the Day (5/6/91)

Cubs 4, Astros 3. Houston's Jim Deshaies was a perfectly respectable pitcher, coming off of a stretch of three consecutive 200-inning seasons with ERAs of roughly average or better. There are plenty of pitching matchups in which he might have given the Astros the advantage.

None of those involve pitching against Greg Maddux.

Game of the Day (5/5/91)

Mariners 5, Yankees 4 (16). Seattle's Rich DeLucia was 26 and getting his first opportunity as a full-time starter; given that he posted an ERA north of 5 and led the AL in home runs allowed, it's not a huge surprise that it was also the last time he would start over half of his games, though he did hang around in various bullpens for the rest of the decade. He was opposed by Dave Eiland, who also never stuck as a starter, but didn't spend much time in bullpens either; Eiland would match DeLucia's ten major league seasons, but threw less than 400 total innings in very intermittent starting duties.

Most of the other starters on May 5 were better than these two, some of them significantly so (Kevin Brown, Dave Stieb, Dwight Gooden, Bob Welch, Doug Drabek, Bud Black, and Greg Swindell would all throw at least 2000 innings with above-average ERAs, with some of them clearing both barriers by wide margins). But it was this little-known pairing that would begin an absolute epic of a baseball game.

Game of the Day (5/4/91)

Padres 6, Expos 5 (13). Montreal started Rick Mahler, who at age 37 was embarking on the final season of a relatively long, moderately-distinguished career. San Diego opposed him with Eric Nolte, who, despite being over a decade younger, had even less time left in the majors than Mahler. (Which is not a great sign.)

Game of the Day (5/3/91)

A's 4, Indians 3 (11). Cleveland started young right-hander Charles Nagy, who we've already seen in one Game of the Day this year. That's nothing compared to Oakland's Dave Stewart, who matches Nagy's one 1991 GOTD, and who also started no less than five GOTDs in the 1984 season.

Game of the Day (5/2/91)

May 2, 1991, saw only two major league games played. It's as if all of baseball decided to take a breather after the 19-inning classic played the day before. (Of course, one of the two games played featured the Brewers, who participated in the aforementioned single-game doubleheader, so maybe it was just a coincidence of scheduling.) The best of the pair was Blue Jays 3, Royals 1, which matched up a pair of solid young right-handers. Toronto's Todd Stottlemyre was on the way to the best season he would have while on the team for which he pitched over half of his career. Kansas City's Kevin Appier would have a similarly-effective 1991, then go on to become one of the best pitchers in baseball over the next two seasons.

Game of the Day (5/1/91)

Brewers 10, White Sox 9 (19). Milwaukee's Mark Knudson had already started one Game of the Day before this one. Chicago's Greg Hibbard had him beat in that regard, as his prior two starts had also been their days' most exciting contests. And as you can most likely tell from the scoreline, none of those three previous games had come anywhere close to the journey on which these two pitchers (and their bullpens) were about to embark.