Aroldis Chapman's K streak is over

When Asdrubal Cabrera hit his walk off HR last night off Aroldis Chapman, it brought an end to the third longest consecutive games streak in MLB history in which a reliever recorded a strikeout.

Here are the top 15 streaks. Yes, Pedro Martinez was originally a pretty damn good relief pitcher. In 1962, Hoyt Wilhem set the record with 21 straight games.


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Generated 6/20/2012.

leatherman said:

When Asdrubal Cabrera hit his walk off HR last night off Aroldis Chapman....

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I WENT CRAZY!!! It was a terrible game, I almost didn't watch the end but have to admit I like to see Chapman make batters look silly, even when it's the Tribe. He is an impressive dude. He definitely didn't have his best stuff last night, it's kind of sad to see such a great streak come to an end. But hey, like I said, I was a very happy Tribe fan last night, so it was probably worth it!

Aroldis fastballs were way down in velocity too. The one Asdrubal hit out was only 94 MPH and the previous four were 96. Might have been b/c he was slide-stepping and paying waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much attention to Choo on first.

Makes you wonder how differently Pedro's career would have been had he stayed a relief pitcher...

markakis8 said:

Aroldis fastballs were way down in velocity too. The one Asdrubal hit out was only 94 MPH and the previous four were 96. Might have been b/c he was slide-stepping and paying waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much attention to Choo on first.

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He wasn't hitting the strike zone very often either (especially early in the count), which was sort of killing him. I think both hits came on a 3-1, although I might be "misremembering"...

kind of a worthless stat if you ask me. Growing up I watched Bruce Sutter pitch for the Braves, he would blow a game at least once a week.

Kevin

markakis8 said:

Aroldis fastballs were way down in velocity too. The one Asdrubal hit out was only 94 MPH and the previous four were 96. Might have been b/c he was slide-stepping and paying waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much attention to Choo on first.

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Some rumors that he is dealing with a "tight back" which has also kept him from throwing his slider recently. Time to put him on the DL for 15 days or so and let him recover, he clearly has something bothering him

schmidtfan20 said:

kind of a worthless stat if you ask me. Growing up I watched Bruce Sutter pitch for the Braves, he would blow a game at least once a week.

Kevin

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hehe... I was actually thinking that myself. First I thought it's too bad that the one out that Aroldis got wasn't a K. Then I thought it must be harder to do when you're a closer since the game could end at any time like that. And then I thought "hmmm, so you could totally blow the game but as long as you pick up a K first you're OK..." which lead to "kind of a worthless stat".

Way worse though was the situation with Nick Hagadon in this very game. He came in needing to get one out, and instead 1 hit and 2 wild pitches later the go ahead run scored. For this he was rewarded a W in the win column. 5 guys on the Cleveland staff combined for 9.2 innings of awesomeness and get nothing, but the guy who choked it for 0.1 gets the W. Baseball, you cruel and beautiful mistress...

schmidtfan20 said:

kind of a worthless stat if you ask me. Growing up I watched Bruce Sutter pitch for the Braves, he would blow a game at least once a week.

Kevin

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Sutter's 1977 season was great. He was 7-3 with 31 saves, and a 1.34 ERA in 107.1 IP. He also had 129 Ks. Comparing his 1977 streak to how he pitched for the Braves in his last 3 seasons doesn't make much sense. I bet you don't judge Steve Carlton by his last three seasons, when he was 15-29 with a 5.72 ERA.

Likewise, Gagne's 2003 season (which was a majority of his streak) was even more impressive. He was 2-3 with a NL record tying 55 saves (and no blown saves), and a 1.20 ERA in 82.1 IP. He had a 137 Ks (15.0 K/9) as well, and won the NL CYA.

Finally, Chapman began the season with 24 straight appearances without allowing an earned run, while striking out a batter in each game.

All three of these were pretty dominant pitching performances, and the strikeout streaks were indicative of such.

leatherman said:

All three of these were pretty dominant pitching performances, and the strikeout streaks were indicative of such.

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But you have to admit, it is possible to be an absolutely horrible reliever and still get a pretty good streak like this one going... and each of those streaks has to have a couple terrible games that happened to include at least 1 K. Wouldn't you?

RL24 said:

But you have to admit, it is possible to be an absolutely horrible reliever and still get a pretty good streak like this one going... and each of those streaks has to have a couple terrible games that happened to include at least 1 K. Wouldn't you?

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I don't think you are going to get a horrible reliever with a 25 game streak, just like you aren't going to get a terrible hitter with a 30 game hitting streak. You might get one that's below average, but not horrible. The list above is loaded with some pretty darn good relievers. And for the ones that aren't so well known: Elarton's success as a reliever caused Houston to promote him to being a starter a month after his streak ended, winning 17 games the next season. He didn't appear as a reliever again until 2008, his final season. John Hiller held the MLB saves record from 1973-1983, and Billy McCool was decent, finishing his career with an ERA+ of 104.

Dan Uggla went 1-4 with 3 Ks, followed by 1-5 with 3 Ks, in back-to-back games during his 33 game hitting streak (July 8-9 last year, in which he was batting .185 at the time). So yes, it's possible to have some horrible games in the midst of a long streak. But I think it's the exception to the rule.

RL24 said:

But you have to admit, it is possible to be an absolutely horrible reliever and still get a pretty good streak like this one going... and each of those streaks has to have a couple terrible games that happened to include at least 1 K. Wouldn't you?

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But the majority of those pitchers on the list were very good, many All-Stars, etc....all with low ERAs during that stretch. So exactly what is your point?

OT: I wish my name was Billy McCool!

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

leatherman said:

Dan Uggla went 1-4 with 3 Ks, followed by 1-5 with 3 Ks, in back-to-back games during his 33 game hitting streak (July 8-9 last year, in which he was batting .185 at the time). So yes, it's possible to have some horrible games in the midst of a long streak. But I think it's the exception to the rule.

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Awesome! I love your threads and all the stats you are able to pull up.

scotty216brs said:

But the majority of those pitchers on the list were very good, many All-Stars, etc....all with low ERAs during that stretch. So exactly what is your point?

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The point was that "consecutive relief appearances in which a pitcher recorded a strikeout" is, in the words of the immortal schmidtfan20, "kind of a worthless stat". The same can be (and often is) said about hit streaks. That's all. I wasn't saying that the players on the list aren't/weren't good pitchers. It's just that you can strike out one guy and then allow 10ER, and keep the streak going. You can do an Uggla and strike out 6 times (probably when his team needed him, the bases were loaded but he SO and then they lost) in 2 games, and still keep the streak going.

I still found it fascinating to read about and compare the numbers.... don't get me wrong.

I guess your to blame since posting this he is 0-2 with a 27.00 ERA.