MLB’s rarest pitching matchup: 20-game winners facing off in Game 7
By Bill Felber
What’s the rarest event of major significance in baseball history? Statistically, that’s an easy one: 20-game winners taking the mound against one another in Game 7 of the World Series.
There have only been a half-dozen such contests in the game’s history, and not one in the past two decades.
And given the paucity of 20-game winners in the modern game, it’s plausible that we may not see another such matchup in many of our lifetimes.
Numbers to know about MLB pitchers who have each won 20 games squaring off in Game 7 of the World Series
The numbers aren’t really surprising, but they are powerful. In the past decade, only 18 pitchers reached the 20-victory plateau, and only two of those – Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander with the 2019 Houston Astros – pitched in the World Series.
Neither one of them started Game 7 for Houston; Zack Greinke (18-5) did that.
On the rare occasions when 20-game winners have been pitted against one another in a Game 7 showdown, those games have generally become classics. Four of the six 20-game Game 7 showdowns are today often ranked among the 10 or 12 most memorable games in all of baseball history.
The other two, perhaps strangely, turned into two of the most one-sided Game 7s ever played.
The dozen pitchers who found themselves pitted against one another in those six games are, from a historical perspective, an eclectic group. Two are Hall of Famers, and two others – both of them controversial – could be elected later this month.
Several of the others, however, are not especially memorable figures today. What do you know about Hugh Bedient, Bobo Newsom, or Jack Sanford?
Here’s a recapitulation of these rarest of games: Game 7 showdowns pitting 20-game winners against each other.