Ruane: Low-hit clusters

June 20, 2012/in /by jpomrenke

From SABR member Tom Ruane at Retrosheet.org on June 20, 2012:

By now, everyone has probably heard about R. A. Dickey’s back-to-back one-hitters and how he is the first pitcher since Dave Stieb in 1988 to throw two consecutive low-hit games (no-hitters or one-hitters). But has anyone ever thrown three consecutive low-hit games? Well, no. But one pitcher came really close. Here are the fewest number of consecutive starts that includes three low-hit games from 1916 to 2011:

S  Name                    First          Last
 4  Dave Stieb            9-24-1988      4-10-1989
 8  Pete Alexander        6- 5-1915      7- 5-1915
12  Sam McDowell          8-31-1965(2)   5- 1-1966
13  Phil Douglas          8-27-1920(2)   6- 4-1921    *
13  Ewell Blackwell       9- 2-1950      5-15-1951
14  Bob Feller            9-26-1941(2)   4-30-1946    **
14  Jim Tobin             4-23-1944(1)   6-22-1944(2) ***

* - includes a 5-inning one-hitter
** - includes one no-hitter
*** - includes two no-hitters, one a 5-inning game

Okay, I cheated with Pete Alexander. Knowing that he pitched four one-hitters in 1915, I checked his dailies by hand. And there may be other pitchers from 1915 and earlier who will be added to this list as the data becomes available (but not Rube Marquard, who pitched back-to-back one-hitters in 1911, because I checked his dailies by hand as well).

And if you wanted to be picky, you could argue that Stieb also belongs in second place with five starts, third place with six starts, and so on.

So who threw four low-hit games in the shortest span of starts?

Read the full article here: http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/retro_fun2.htm#A120619

---

Originally published: June 20, 2012. Last Updated: June 20, 2012.