#SaleGreinke earns its hashtag
by Christopher Kamka

Yes it's true that both men combined for merely eleven whiffs; a total each pitcher had surpassed on his own at least once this season.  But there's more to a mound masterpiece than a long trail of strikeout victims.  Sale kicked it up a notch when runners threatened to score.  Greinke simply chose to deny scoring position as an option.  When the game ended with the Southsiders' 10th consecutive goose egg (apparently the goose remains the only animal capable of producing eggs of this shape), the box score showed tremendous numbers for the two starters. 

In fact, both Sale and Greinke posted game scores of at least 80.  The game score***, developed by Bill James,  is a quick and easy way to measure the quality of a starting pitcher's performance.  While not perfect, I think it gets the job done while assigning a quick one-number value for the sake of comparison.  Digging through the box scores, it becomes apparent that the White Sox haven't participated in a  pitchers' duel of this magnitude in some time. 

The last time a Sox starter took part in a battle of 80+ game scores was game one of an August 17th,1990 doubleheader, when the "Little Bulldog" Greg Hibbard locked horns with Nolan Ryan in a strange "David vs Goliath" matchup in Texas.  The crafty White Sox left-hander was on his way to a career-high 92 punchouts (in 211 innings).  Of course the "Ryan Express" grunted and groaned (Goose Gossage, in his autobiography The Goose is Loose, commented that "When he let go of his fastball, he sounded like a woman giving birth.  Or a beast in the jungle."  Bill Melton told me virtually the same thing.) his way to at least twice as many as Hibbard's career high in 18 different seasons, tripled it six times, and with his Major League record 383 in 1973 quadrupled it.  And on this August 1990 day, the 43-year old legend posted a game score of 101#.  What would amount to Hibbard's career high of 81 went for naught. 

August 18, 1990 (game 1);  Rangers 1, White Sox 0

                   GSc     IP     H     R     ER     BB    K
Hibbard:       82      8      2     0      0        3     6
Ryan:         101     10     3     0      0        0    15


The previous "80 vs 80" came improbably in 1987, a year of epic offensive explosion.^  Floyd Bannister and Mark Langston combined to allow just three hits on a Sunday afternoon at the Kingdome.  The White Sox managed two solo homers (by Donnie Hill and Pat Keedy, of course) and the lone Mariner safety came in the bottom of the third courtesy of Harold Reynolds, who was promptly called out trying to stretch it into a double.  No White Sox pitcher would surpass Bannister's 95 game score until Philip Humber's perfect game (96) against these same (yet very different) Mariners 25 years later.

September 13, 1987;  White Sox 2, Mariners 0

                   GSc     IP     H     R     ER     BB    K
Bannister     95      9      1     0       0       0     10
Langston     81      9       2     2      2       3      9



There were two others since 1980;  both White Sox losses.  Both on May 25th

May 25, 1986       Joel Davis 82                  Dennis Leonard (Royals) 82
May 25, 1983       Britt Burns 80                 Bruce Hurst (Red Sox) 85


And the previous two came in consecutive games in 1979:

August 15, 1979    Ken Kravec  83             Mike Flanagan (Orioles) 99
August 14, 1979    Rich Wortham 83          Steve Stone (Orioles) 80

and just for fun, the Sox' Steve Trout tossed an 83 the day before on August 13, 1979 (But the Orioles' Scott McGregor turned in a shabby 32), making it three in a row by White Sox starters with exactly 83!


While other recent matchups were certainly ones to remember (for example Floyd vs Lilly in 2010, Santana vs Garcia in 2005, etc.), Sale vs Greinke fulfilled my latest obscure statistical requirements, and hopefully the White Sox offense will prevent another one of these pitchers' duels from happening for quite some time.




***Game Score:  begin with 50 points.  Add one point for each out recorded.  Add two points for each inning completed after the 4th inning.  Add one point for each strikeout.
                            Subtract two points for each hit allowed.  Subtract four points for each earned run; two points for each unearned run.  And subtract one point for each walk.

#Only six times has a pitcher reached 100+ since; Ryan again in a 5/1/1991 no-hitter, Kerry Wood 5/6/1998 in his 20-strikeout game, Curt Schilling 4/7/2002, Randy Johnson's 5/18/2004 perfect game,
  Brandon Morrow 8/8/2010, and Matt Cain in his 6/13/2012 perfect game.

^1987 offense stuck out like a sore thumb (below are MLB totals)
   YR       R/GM    HR
   1985    4.33     3602
   1986    4.41     3813
   1987    4.72     4458
   1988    4.14     3180
   1989    4.13     3083