This week I am going to explain to you what a game score is and how it is used. I am sure that you have seen it while looking through either the ‘Top Performances’ page or a box score in WBL. But, you probably have no idea what they mean or how they got it. Neither did I, until I accidentally ran into it while looking at websites, actually ESPN.com. It started to make sense right away and is interesting, something that I wouldn’t have thought of.
A game score is another statistic that was made up by Bill James. It shows how well a pitcher dominated their opponent in their start. The best game pitched, according to game scores, in baseball history was on May 6, 1998 when Kid-K, Kerry Wood, struck out 20 Houston Astros while only allowing an infield hit to Ricky Gutierrez and walking zero. Wood’s game score was 105.
To equate a game score, each pitcher before he throws his first pitch starts with 50 points. Then, they get 1 point for each out they get, or each third of an inning. Next, add 2 points for each inning pitched after the 4th inning, 1 points for each strikeout, -2 for each hit allowed, -4 for each earned run, -2 for each unearned run, and 1 for each walk.
You can do this for hitting performances, but I’m not really sure how.
Actually, I’m not so sure if Bill James came up for the idea for this stat though, he may of just made up the formulas because I found a website and it seems that an article (or post, maybe it’s a blog?) written by Melissa Lockard on 3-3-04 seems to introduce the idea, or so you would think. But, did she? After thinking this over, OOTP5 has been out for over a year, well before Lockard wrote this (link: <http://athletics.mostvaluablenetwork.com/index.php?cat=1>, then control + F and enter game score to find the article), and OOTP5 uses it. So I would think that she just wasn’t aware of the concept of a ‘game score’. Is this ignorance though? Probably not, she’s just misinformed. It is interesting though that she compares this system with the hockey system of +/-.
The game with the highest game score is of course the perfect game of Randy Johnson, game score of 100, on 5/18. The second highest score was also on 5/18. It is Jason Schmidt’s one hitter versus the Chicago Cubs.
Next, I am going to make up two rosters for two teams to have a ‘game’ to make up a fake game long an example of a game score. In parentheses I will list the pitcher’s game score.
Team 1: Quito
Lineup-
3B Brooks Simmons
1B Matt Patterson
SS Andy La Rouche
C JD Boom
CF Steve Sollman
RF Da Bomb
LF Nate Hutson
2B Maria Shooper
P Robert Kurz
Team 2: South Africa
Lineup-
2B David May
SS Michael Peralta
C Pierce Feltini
1B Glen Wiggins
RF Mike Clark
LF Tony Pryor
CF Jon Vish
3B Emmanuel Toombs
P Travis Torlone
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (50 game score)
David May
Ground out, 6-3 (+1, 51 total)
Michael Peralta
Ground out, 6-3 (+1, 52)
Pierce Feltini
Single (-2, 50)
Glen Wiggins
Ground Out, 6-4 (+1, 51)
Summary- 0 runs on 1 hit, no errors
Quito 0, South Africa 0, mid 1
Batting- Quito
Pitching: Travis Torlone (50)
Brooks Simmons
Double to left field (-2, 48)
Matt Patterson
Walk (-1, 47)
Andy LaRouche
3 run homerun to left field (, -1, -12 [3 earned runs], 34 total)
JD Boom
Solo homerun to center ( -6, 28)
Steve Sollman
Single to center (-2, 26)
Da Bomb
Double play, 6-4-3 (+2, 28)
Nate Hutson
Strike out (+2, 30)
Summary: 4 runs on 4 hits, 0 errors
Quito 4, South Africa 0, end of 1
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (51)
Mike Clark
Strikeout looking (+2, 53)
Tony Pryor
Pop out to left (+1, 54)
Jon Vish
Ground out, 5-3 (+1, 55)
Summary: 0 runs on 0 hits, 0 errors
Quito 4, South Africa 0, mid 2
Batting- Quito
Pitching: Travis Torlone (30)
Maria Shooper
Strikeout (+2, 32)
Robert Kurz
Hit by pitch (0, 32)
Brooks Simmons
Fielders choice, 5-4 (+1, 33)
Matt Patterson
Double to right, Kurz scores (-6, 39)
Andy La Rouche
Pop out to center (+1, 40)
1 run on 1 hit, 0 errors
Quito 5, South Africa 0, end of 2
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (55)
Emmanuel Toombs
Ground out, 5-4 (+1, 56)
Travis Torlone
Strike out (+2, 57)
David May
Ground out, 6-3 (+1, 58)
0 runs on 0 hits, 0 errors
Quito 5, South Africa 0, mid 3
Batting- Quito
Pitching: Travis Torlone (40)
JD Boom
Double to left field (-2, 38)
Steve Sollman
Single, Boom scores (-3, 35)
Da Bomb
Homerun (-10, 35)
Nate Hutson
Single (-2, 33)
Maria Shooper
Ground out/double play, 5-4-3 (+2, 35)
Robert Kurz
Walk (-1, 34)
Brooks Simmons
Homerun to deep right (-10, 24)
5 runs on 5 hits, 0 errors
Quito 10, South Africa 0, Bottom of the 3rd, 2 outs
Torlone gets pulled from the game and a reliever comes in. Since they don’t get a game score, the part with Quito hitting ends here. Torlone ends with a game score of 24, not good at all. He lost 26 points over 2 2/3 innings pitched and gave up 10 runs. I can still continue with Kurz pitching though…
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (58)
Michael Peralta
Ground out, 1-3 (+1, 59)
Pierce Feltini
Strike out looking, (+2, 61)
Glen Wiggins
Fly out to center (+1, 62)
0 runs on 0 hits, 0 errors
Quito 11, South Africa 0, mid 4
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (62)
Mike Clark
Fly out to right (+1, 63)
Tony Pryor
Ground out, 3-1 (+1, 64)
Jon Vish
Strike out, (+2, 66)
0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors
Quito 12, South Africa 0, mid 5
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (66)
Emmanuel Toombs
Ground out, 4-1 (+1, 67)
Travis Torlone
Grounder to short, E6, (0, 67)
David May
Fly out to left (+1, 68)
Michael Peralta
Ground out, 3U (+1, 69)
Pierce Feltini
Double (-3, 66)
Glen Wiggins
Strikeout, (+2, 68)
1 hit, 1 run, 1 error
Quito 12, South Africa 1, mid 6
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (68)
Mike Clark
Ground out, 5-3 (+1, 69)
Tony Pryor
Fly out to right field (+1, 70)
Jon Vish
Ground out, 5-3 (+1, 71)
0 hits, 0 runs, 0 errors
Quito 13, South Africa 1, mid 7
Batting- South Africa
Pitching: Robert Kurz (71)
Emmanuel Toombs
Fly out to right (+1, 72)
Travis Torlone
Ground out, 3U (+1, 73)
David May
Strike out (+2, 75)
0 hits, 0 runs, 0 errors
Quito 13, South Africa 1, mid 8
Kurz doesn’t come in to pitch the ninth; Quito brings in a reliever. Kurz ends with a very good score of 75. But, just think, if he was more of a strikeout pitcher he could have ended up in the 80’s for his game score.
I guess you could say that I was trying to show you a few things with this sample game log:
1- How quickly a game score can go down.
2- How strikeouts help a game score.
3- Usually to get a very high game score you need to strikeout a lot of batters.
Maybe you will get something out of my explanation of a game score, with example game, and maybe you won’t but you actually could use this to figure out how good the pitcher pitches without using his ‘statistics’ on the page. One thing that is interesting is that a strikeout does not cancel out a hit allowed, but 2 would. This makes it hard to dig out of a hole unless its just a bump in the game and you fly by from there on and pitch more than 4 or 5 innings.
Mail Bag
"Quito just went from worst to first. Now they are around 5 games or out of of a playoff spot. Why is this happening?" Pete from Newark
Well Pete, I’m not really sure. The hitting is still hitting. I think they lead the league in homeruns. The pitching they are getting isn’t all that bad. But, the relief pitching is. The relief pitchers are not performing up to par. The only one that is performing well so far is re-converted closer Robert Kurz. But, other than him the ‘pen has blown many games for the Fire. This is a huge problem, but it can be fixed and it could turn around their season.
"Will the WBL make their own hall of fame or will they wait for players to retire and OOTP5 to pick them?" Jim from Chicago
I’m not really up to date with this topic but I remember a while ago there was talk about this and the opinions differed if I can remember right. I think that they should make a HOF to go along with the one in OOTP5. In OOTP5, the standards are based on marks in the MLB, not the WBL though. Also, some players contributions could not be seen possibly or players could miss the marks but put up great numbers. It’s a really interesting idea, but it would potentially take a lot of time up.
"What team do you think has the best set of cheerleaders?" Pablo from Pamplona, Spain
Pablo, like there is no crying in baseball, there aren’t cheerleaders as well. I think that this is just a way for some horny young kids to get to see pictures or hot women all the time. I have never seen one cheerleader at a baseball game before. Actually, I have, but it was a minor league game, so that really doesn’t count. I don’t know it just doesn’t make sense to me. Oh well…