Friday, September 7, 2007

Complete Absence

Mets starting pitching staff this season has zero 9-inning complete games this season (both Mets CGs in 2007 have been rain-shortened). The fewest 9-inning complete games Mets starters have had in a full season was in 2004, when they had 2 such games. The most was 47 in 1969. Here are the average number of nine-inning complete games the Mets have had per season during each of the decades from the 1960s on:

1960s: 35
1970s: 34
1980s: 19
1990s: 10
2000-2006: 5

If the Mets do end up, as seems likely, with no 9-inning complete games in 2007, that would reduce their average per season since 2003 to 3 (15 such games total over the five seasons 2003-2007). The Mets are just one of four NL teams that have no 9-inning complete games this season. There have been a total 37 such games by all of the 16 teams in the NL in 2007, for an average of about 2 per team so far. Brandon Webb has four all by himself, including three over the period from Aug. 5 to Aug. 17, during his big scoreless streak.

3 comments:

Joe D said...

Hi,

I'm Joe DeCaro from Mets Merized Online at http://metsmerizedonline.com.

I just came across your Mets site and thought I'd ask you if we could do a link exchange.

Thanks so much,

Joe

birtelcom said...

Sure, Joe. Your site looks great -- I'd be happy to link to it and would be honored to have you link to mine.

Ken (metaphorians kid brother) said...

As pitching 9 entire innings continues its decline into a "completely" lost art, it is useful to compare the Mets' lack of completeness to that of the Boston Red Sox a century ago -- in 1907, Red Sox pitcher Cy Young by himself had 33 complete games (out of 37 that he started). And he still found the time to make 6 other appearances in relief! And of course, quantity isn't everything, so its a good thing he kept his ERA that year down to a respectable 1.99.

By the way, a better title for this particular post would have been "the incompleteness theorem."

Yours,