September 28, 1979: Orioles’ Jim Palmer slops his way to final win of decade

The winningest pitcher of the 1970s wore the white, orange, and black of the Baltimore Orioles. With 186 regular-season victories,1 Jim Palmer narrowly nosed out Gaylord Perry (184 wins) for pride of place among major-league moundsmen.2

Win number 186, however, was scarcely a triumphant victory lap for the Baltimore righty. Handed a 12-2 lead after three innings on September 28, 1979, the final Friday of the regular season, Palmer lasted only 5⅓ innings against the Cleveland Indians. He was touched up for six earned runs, but the Orioles bullpen held on for a 14-6 victory. Palmer’s Game Score of 30 was his worst of the decade for a game in which he received the win.3

With a 101-55 record, Earl Weaver’s Orioles had already wrapped up the American League East Division title, so there was nothing riding on the day’s results from a competitive standpoint. Instead, the game was primarily a test of Palmer’s readiness for the coming AL playoffs against the AL West Division champion California Angels.

Palmer had struggled with back and elbow injuries during the season and hadn’t pitched since September 16.4 The 33-year-old right-hander entered the game with a 9-6 record; 1979 was one of only two seasons in the ’70s in which Palmer failed to win 20 games.5 Weaver had placed an approximate limit of 100 pitches on Palmer’s outing.6 With the playoffs looming, Weaver and the Orioles’ fans were eager to see how far Palmer could make those 100 pitches go. Palmer had faced the Indians once before in 1979, throwing a complete-game four-hitter in a 3-1 win on June 27.

Palmer entered the season with 176 wins to Perry’s 172, and Palmer’s injuries could have opened the door for Perry to pull ahead of him. But Perry, pitching for the fifth-place San Diego Padres, slumped from 21 wins in 1978 to 12 in 1979, including a stretch of eight starts without a win between July 24 and August 25. Perry made his final start of the season on September 3, then sealed his second-place finish by walking out on the Padres the next day, demanding a trade.7

Manager Dave Garcia’s sixth-place Indians had a soupçon of pride to play for. At 79-79, they had a chance to finish the season above .500, a feat achieved by the Indians only once in the preceding decade.8 This challenge held little interest for Cleveland’s sports fans, who had switched their attention to pro football’s Browns. The Browns, off to a blazing 4-0 start, drew a crowd of 80,123 to giant Cleveland Stadium for a defeat of the mighty Dallas Cowboys on Monday night, September 24.9 Four nights later, the Indians drew 6,462 to the same venue.10

The Indians’ starter, righty Len Barker, was only 24 but in his fourth major-league season. He’d begun his career with the Texas Rangers, then was sent to Cleveland in October 1978 along with well-traveled outfielder Bobby Bonds.11 He entered with a 6-5 record and a 4.47 ERA. He’d started against the Orioles three times in 1979, with an 0-1 record. Most recently, in the first game of a doubleheader on September 23, Barker had allowed six hits and three runs in 6⅓ innings, taking a no-decision in a game Cleveland won 4-3.

After an uneventful first inning, the Orioles bludgeoned Barker in the second. Eddie Murray singled to center field, and Pat Kelly’s single sent Murray to third base. A walk to Doug DeCinces loaded the bases for Lee May, whose bad-hop single off third baseman Toby Harrah’s glove scored two runs.12 Another walk to Kiko Garcia loaded the bases again. Strikeouts by Rick Dempsey and Al Bumbry gave Cleveland fans hope. But Billy Smith followed with his fifth homer of the season, a grand slam to right field that handed Baltimore a 6-0 lead.13

The Indians regained a little ground in the bottom half, again thanks to the long ball. Harrah led off with a single to left field and moved to second on a groundout. Rookie Ron Hassey’s fourth homer of the season, to right-center field, made the score 6-2.14

Baltimore roared back in the third. With one out, Kelly hit a solo homer and DeCinces walked, putting an early end to Barker’s day. He was replaced by righty Paul Reuschel, making the 198th and last appearance of a five-season big-league career.

Reuschel struck out May for the second out, but after that, the Orioles’ offense erupted. Kiko Garcia doubled DeCinces to third. Dempsey’s single drove in both runners. A walk to Bumbry put runners on first and second for Smith, who doubled in Dempsey. Ken Singleton, the 1979 Orioles’ RBI leader with 111, singled to left field, scoring Bumbry and sending Smith to third. Murray’s single to center field scored Smith for a 12-2 Baltimore lead and chased Reuschel in favor of righty Sandy Wihtol, making his fifth big-league appearance. Wihtol got Kelly on a fly to left, ending the rampage.

With the Orioles apparently in command, both managers began rotating bench players into the game. Baltimore eventually used 15 nonpitchers, while Cleveland gave playing time to 14. Wayne Krenchicki replaced DeCinces at third base in the fourth inning, as the Indians mustered scattered threats against Palmer. Harrah led off with his 20th homer of the year, to right field, to make the score 12-3. Jim Norris and Dave Rosello worked back-to-back two-out walks off Palmer before Tom Veryzer’s pop to Krenchicki ended the frame.

The score stayed 12-3 until the bottom of the sixth. Harrah singled for his third hit of the game. One out later, Hassey doubled him home, and Norris singled in Hassey to make the score 12-5. Palmer reached 101 pitches at this point, and Weaver pulled him in favor of rookie righty Tim Stoddard.15 Veryzer’s two-out triple off Stoddard scored Norris, tacking an earned run onto Palmer’s pitching line and bringing the score to 12-6.

Righty Larry Andersen took over in the top of the seventh, and the Orioles widened their lead. Bumbry hit a one-out single to center and Smith followed with a triple, collecting his third hit and sixth RBI of the game.16 Mark Corey, who had replaced Singleton, singled in Smith for his first big-league hit and RBI.17 Baltimore led 14-6.

Amid the parade of substitutions, the offenses quieted for the rest of the game. The Orioles’ Tippy Martinez and Don Stanhouse pitched hitless relief over the final three innings, while Andersen and Víctor Cruz stifled Baltimore in the eighth and ninth. The game ended after 3 hours and 3 minutes on a groundball to the mound by Rick Manning, capping an 0-for-5 day for the Indians’ center fielder.

The Baltimore Sun described Palmer as “less than razor sharp,” but the pitcher told reporters he was “pleased” with how he felt on the mound. Weaver, sometimes an antagonist of Palmer, also sounded a positive note: “I think he started rushing his delivery because we had such a big lead and he wanted to get it over with. You’d like to see him give up no runs, but I’m satisfied.”18

Cleveland’s Garcia told reporters, “You’re going to have days like that, and Baltimore is a very good baseball team.” He could afford to be philosophical. Based on the team’s strong play in the second half, the Indians had announced earlier that day that Garcia would return as manager in 1980.19

The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted another milestone in the making. Sparse as it was, the night’s attendance brought the season’s total to 982,059, giving the Indians a chance to reach the million-fan mark with two more dates remaining.20 The Indians drew a total of 1,011,644 fans in 1979. That ranked them only 12th out of 14 AL teams but represented a 26 percent improvement over 1978’s total gate of 800,584 fans.

Palmer started Game One of the ALCS against California on October 3 and pitched nine innings, scattering seven hits and three runs in a game Baltimore won, 6-3, in the 10th inning. He also started Games Two and Six of the World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, taking a no-decision in a Baltimore loss in Game Two and losing Game Six.21

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks SABR member Vince Guerrieri for research assistance.

Photo credit: Jim Palmer, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE197909280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B09280CLE1979.htm

Notes

1 Palmer also won five games in postseason play in the 1970s, to Gaylord Perry’s one.

2 Mike Lupica, “All He Did Was Win: Palmer Ruled the 1970s,” MLB.com, April 27, 2020. https://www.mlb.com/news/jim-palmer-top-starting-pitcher-of-1970s; Statmuse, “Most Wins by a Pitcher in the 1970s,” accessed November 2023, https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/most-wins-by-a-pitcher-in-the-1970s.

3 The Game Score formula, developed by pioneering baseball researcher and SABR member Bill James, awards starting pitchers points for positive achievements such as strikeouts and outs recorded, while docking points for negative events like hits, walks, and earned runs surrendered. A starting pitcher begins a game with 50 points and gains or loses from there. For comparison’s sake, Palmer’s highest Game Score of the 1970s was 93, earned on September 27, 1974, when he threw 12 innings of four-hit, no-run, six-walk, five-strikeout ball against the Milwaukee Brewers. (The Orioles won the game in 17 innings, 1-0.) Game Scores are available in pitchers’ year-by-year game logs on Baseball-Reference, and the author scrolled through Palmer’s game logs from 1970 to 1979 to compare scores.

4 Bob Nold, “Indians Rough Up Orioles’ Palmer, but to No Avail,” Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, September 29, 1979: C2.

5 The 1974 season was the other. Again struggling with injuries, Palmer posted a 7-12 record.

6 Ken Nigro, “Orioles Batter Indians,” Baltimore Sun, September 29, 1979: B5.

7 Bob Lindley, “Kuhn’s Office Eyes Corbett,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, September 6, 1979: 1F. The Padres traded Perry to the Texas Rangers in February 1980; the Rangers then flipped him to the New York Yankees on August 14.

8 They did it: The Indians finished the 1979 season with an 81-80 record.

9 “1979 Cleveland Browns,” Pro-Football-Reference, accessed November 2023, https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/cle/1979.htm; Ken Murray, “Dallas Looks Into Mirror for Culprit,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 25, 1979: 1D.

10 Two months earlier to the day, on July 28, 1979, a multi-act, eight-hour “World Series of Rock” concert had drawn more than 65,000 people to Cleveland Stadium. The concert, marred by violence, is also remembered by Aerosmith fans as the day founding guitarist Joe Perry (no relation to Gaylord) quit the band after a backstage argument. Associated Press, “Rock Fans Become Violent,” Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal, July 29, 1979: 10; Jeff Giles, “The Day Joe Perry Quit Aerosmith,” Ultimate Classic Rock, July 28, 2015, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/joe-perry-quits-aerosmith/.

11 Full terms of the deal: Bonds and Barker to Cleveland; Jim Kern and Larvell Blanks to the Rangers.

12 Nold, “Indians Rough Up Orioles’ Palmer, but to No Avail.”

13 Smith hit only two more big-league home runs – one the next day off Cleveland’s Dan Spillner and one on May 5, 1981, off the New York Mets’ Dyar Miller while playing for the San Francisco Giants.

14 Hassey played 25 games for the 1978 Indians, but did not exceed rookie limits until 1979, when he appeared in 75 games.

15 Nigro, “Orioles Batter Indians.” Stoddard had appeared in one game in 1975 and eight in 1978, but did not exceed rookie limits until 1979.

16 The six RBIs were a career high for Smith, who played in 370 games across six seasons. He recorded three hits in a game 12 times; this was the last.

17 Corey played 59 games across three major-league seasons, collecting 12 hits and 3 RBIs.

18 Nigro, “Orioles Batter Indians.”

19 Associated Press, “Ryan Loses, Palmer Wins in Tuneups for AL Playoffs,” Newark (Ohio) Advocate, September 29, 1979: 10. Garcia had replaced Jeff Torborg as Cleveland’s manager on July 23. He remained the Indians’ manager through the end of the 1982 season.

20 Dan Coughlin, “Birds Push Tribe Game Under .500,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 29, 1979: 28.

21 For comparison, Palmer’s game scores in his postseason appearances were 62 (Game One, ALCS), 54 (Game Two, World Series), and 48 (Game Six, World Series).