Baltimore Orioles: Dylan Bundy and the worst starts ever

Baltimore Orioles hurler Dylan Bundy had one of the worst starting pitching performances imaginable on Tuesday, but was it the worst start ever?

Dylan Bundy had a night to forget on Tuesday night for the Baltimore Orioles against the Kansas City Royals. The Royals came into this game with only a 12-23 record and one of the worst offenses in the American League. However, none of that seemed to matter.

In the first inning of Tuesday’s ballgame Orioles starting pitcher, Dylan Bundy, had one of the worst starts imaginable, giving up seven runs to score without recording an out. The progression went as so: single, home run, home run, home run, walk, walk, home run.

That’s four home runs in seven batters! Bundy allowed every batter he faced to score and only had one batted ball not to leave the yard. Here’s a look at these majestic shots:

So let’s put this horrific start into some perspective. Game Score is a fun, easy stat that attempts to quantify the quality of a starter’s outing. It starts at 50 and then points are added or subtracted based on how well or poorly the pitcher performs. Using the Baseball Reference Play Index, I was able to find the worst ever starts according to Game Score.

The worst start ever was delivered by George LeClair of the Pittsburgh Rebels in 1914 in a Federal League game. He surrendered 21 runs in this game giving him a whopping -56 Game Score. If we look more at the modern game, Mike Oquist becomes our worst performer with a -21 Game Score.

He achieved this by allowing 14 runs in 5 innings. Dylan Bundy had a Game Score of 10 on Tuesday, which is a far cry from these negative numbers, but these pitchers were allowed to keep on pitching while Bundy failed to record a single out.

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We have to give Bundy some extra credit since he wasn’t able to retire any batters. This puts an extra hardship on the bullpen that could have ripple effects for weeks.

Also, given an unlimited leash, who knows how many runs he would have allowed. Looking at pitchers who were unable to record an out, Bundy starts to creep toward the top (or bottom depending on how you want to look at it) of the leaderboard.

Bundy’s Game Score ranks 9th worst all-time among pitchers who did not record an out. The worst of which being Paul Wilson who posted a 7 Game Score without recording an out twice in his career.

The remarkable aspect of Bundy’s start and what might make it the worst start ever is the fantastic way that he surrendered all the runs.

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Not only did he allow every batter to score, but every swing resulted in a base hit. Four out of five of those hits left the ballpark. In fact, Bundy became the first pitcher ever to allow four home runs in a start without retiring a single batter.

This requires an exceptional level of futility. Bundy did not have his command on Tuesday night which was further evidenced by the only batters that didn’t hit the ball hard reached base via free passes.

The home runs show that not only did Bundy not have a good command of his pitches, but he also did not have good enough stuff to get the ball by hitters while making mistakes. This is a bad combination that culminated in one of the worst and shortest outings of all time.

Possibly the most unfortunate part of all of this is that Bundy had gotten off to a really good start to the season. This recent outing, however, is his third poor performance in a row, all but eliminating all the good work that he had done before.

In his last three starts, Bundy has pitched nine innings and allowed 22 runs. That is a far cry from his first five starts where he only allowed five runs over 31 2/3 innings pitched.

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It will be fascinating to see how Dylan Bundy can bounce back from this horrendous start. He had finally begun to turn the corner and become a front of the rotation starter before this recent poor stretch. It would be a real shame to see him fall apart like this after all of his hard work with the Baltimore Orioles.