View Full Version : Beating the best
Ubiquitous
03-29-2009, 11:22 PM
Which pitcher has won the most games against the New York Yankees?
Defense Counts!
03-30-2009, 05:13 AM
Recently? Roy Halladay, maybe?
ipitch
03-30-2009, 09:51 AM
Walter Johnson?
RuthMayBond
03-30-2009, 09:53 AM
The Babe did pretty well, didn't he?
Ubiquitous
03-30-2009, 11:46 AM
Correct on Walter Johnson, who pretty much blew anybody else away.
Second place surprisingly enough is Lefty Grove, who many view as a pitcher that dodged the Yankees.
BigRon
03-30-2009, 02:25 PM
I don't see how it was possible- or at least likely- that any premier or first line pitcher could really dodge anybody back in those days. There were only 8 teams- everybody played everybody 22 times. Plus, long series- 4 games or more- were very common back then. I guess I can see intentionally missing a start against a team somewhere during the season, but I think the math of pitching rotations would show that missing more turns would be unlikely.
Possibly late in his career, when Grove became a spot starter, this occurred. Before then, extremely unlikely.
Ubiquitous
03-30-2009, 02:37 PM
We used to have an author that went by the monikor WJackman who looked into Grove's starts and had the opinion that Grove was ducking the Yanks when compared to his fellow pitchers on his team. Unfortunately he passed away a couple of years ago but while he was alive it was a very hot topic within the online baseball community. Some believed he was right and some believed he was wrong.
IF you are curious just do a search of "Grove" or "Ferrell" by user WJackman on this site and you should be able to find most of his posts and some of the debates on this topic.
Ubiquitous
03-30-2009, 02:49 PM
Here is a link (http://www.baseball-fever.com/showpost.php?p=887809&postcount=196) to a post that contains several links to many discussions on Grove. Also that thread contains a lot of discussion on this as well.
ipitch
03-30-2009, 03:14 PM
Correct on Walter Johnson, who pretty much blew anybody else away.
How many did he have?
Ubiquitous
03-30-2009, 03:15 PM
Don't know for sure but it is probably around 50.
ipitch
03-30-2009, 03:29 PM
I just found an article that says it was 60.
http://www.yankeessuck.com/YankessSuckArchives/2004/04/wanted_yankee_killers.html
It sounds about right because 417 / 7 teams = 59.6. I thought it might be lower because the Yankees were pretty good. :nod:
BigRon
03-30-2009, 04:02 PM
I just found an article that says it was 60.
http://www.yankeessuck.com/YankessSuckArchives/2004/04/wanted_yankee_killers.html
It sounds about right because 417 / 7 teams = 59.6. I thought it might be lower because the Yankees were pretty good. :nod:
Actually, the Yankees weren't really that good for much of Johnson's career. Between 1907 and 1919 they frequently were below .500. They didn't become a really good team until Ruth joined them in 1920. By then, most of Johnson's great seasons were in the bag.
ipitch
03-30-2009, 05:19 PM
Actually, the Yankees weren't really that good for much of Johnson's career. Between 1907 and 1919 they frequently were below .500. They didn't become a really good team until Ruth joined them in 1920. By then, most of Johnson's great seasons were in the bag.
Very true.
Ubiquitous
03-30-2009, 06:42 PM
Even though Walter didn't play from 1927 and on and didn't play a lot in 1926 he still finished tied for eighth most wins against the Yankees in the 1920's. He was only 5 wins behind second place and eight wins behind first place.