MLB’s rarest pitching matchup: 20-game winners facing off in Game 7
By Bill Felber
1912: Christy Mathewson vs. Hugh Bedient
The first Game 7 to match up 20-game winners technically wasn’t even a Game 7 at all.
That year’s World Series, pitting the Boston Red Sox and New York Giants, included a tie in Game 2. When the Red Sox and Giants divided the other six scheduled games three a side, the Series was thrown into a winner-take-all Game 8 situation.
Giants manager John McGraw went with his Hall of Fame ace, Christy Mathewson (23-12), his opponent being Bedient, a 20-game winning rookie.
Bedient was making his second Series start and fourth appearance, emerging with a 2-1 victory over Mathewson in Game 5. Mathewson had pitched in hard luck the entire series — two starts, one tie, two losses, all that despite a 0.94 earned run average and three complete games.
The two pitchers battled on even terms through seven innings, the game tied 1-1. Red Sox manager Bill Carrigan yanked Bedient for pinch hitter Olaf Henriksen in that seventh, Henriksen delivering a game-tying double.
To start the eighth, Carrigan turned to his 34-game winner, Smoky Joe Wood, who matched zeroes with Mathewson through the eighth and ninth. Finally in the top of the 10th, the Giants edged in front when Red Murray dropped a ground rule double into the spillover crowd in deep center and Fred Merkle followed with a ground single, also to center.
That put Mathewson in position to wrap up the Series by getting three more outs. But Giants center fielder Fred Snodgrass famously dropped Clyde Engel’s easy fly ball for a two-base error. Snodgrass partially atoned with a great running catch of Harry Hooper’s deep fly, but Mathewson walked Steve Yerkes and surrendered a game-tying base hit to Tris Speaker.
With the Series-winning run at third base, Mathewson intentionally walked Duffy Lewis, preferring to face third baseman Larry Gardner. The move backfired; Gardner’s fly ball to right was easily deep enough to allow Yerkes to score the run that gave Boston a classic 3-2 victory and the Series win.