Birthday Gems
Earlier today, Cincinnati Reds beat reporter John Fay tweeted "Today is birthday of both starting pitchers: Bailey is 26; Dempster 35." I looked through baseball-reference and found that this is the first time since 1918 when game logs became available that this has ever happened. In honor of this, let's look at the five best pitching performances by pitchers on their birthday. I will be using game score since this is extremely easy to do.
5: Doug Drabek (33rd birthday), July 25th, 1995 - Game Score: 90
This was tied for the best performance of Drabek's career. He had another 90 score game in 1992 with the exact same line: Nine innings pitched, nine strikeouts, three hits, no runs, no walks. Hideo Nomo, the opposing pitcher, was chased out of the game after four innings. Raul Mondesi had the only extra-base hit against Drabek with a double in the first.
Tied-3: Marcelino Lopez (23rd birthday), September 23rd, 1966 - Game Score: 91
This was also the most well-pitched game of Lopez's eight year career. He went nine innings, gave up three hits, two walks and no runs, while striking out twelve. He gave up both a double and a triple, but not much else.
Tied-3: Ron Guidry (27th birthday), August 28th, 1977 - Game Score: 91
This was only the third best game of Guidry's career. He had a 92 score game in 1984 and a 95 score game in 1978. However, nine innings, two hits (including a triple), no runs, no walks and eight strikeouts is nothing to scoff at.
2: Vincente Palacios (31st birthday), July 19th, 1994 - Game Score: 92
Palacios had by far the best game of his career on his birthday in 1994. His second best game was an 84 score performance in 1991. But on one special day, he went nine innings, gave up only one hit, one walk and no runs and struck out eight batters. That one hit was a single in the third inning. The late Darryl Kile was the opposing starter.
1: Warren Spahn (30th birthday), April 23rd, 1951 - Game Score: 99
The best birthday performance was completed by none other than The Invincible One himself, hall of famer Warren Spahn. This was only his fourth best game score, as he had three games of at least 100. This is also the only game in the top five which the pitcher lost. His large score is due to the large amount of points accumulated for pitching in late innings. He gave up 10 hits, walked two and struck out eight over 15 and two thirds innings and 184(!) pitches.
