MLB’s rarest pitching matchup: 20-game winners facing off in Game 7
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.
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.
1940: Paul Derringer vs. Bobo Newsom
Nearly three decades elapsed before a Series Game 7 again pitted 20-game winners. This time, Detroit’s Bobo Newsom, a 21-game winner, met 20-game Reds ace Paul Derringer.
The pair had met before, Newsome defeating Derringer 7-2 in Game 1. Derringer recovered to take Game 4 5-2 over Dizzy Trout, while Newsome breezed to a three-hit 8-0 win in Game 5.
Despite working on just one day of rest, Newsom was brilliant for most of that Game 7 matchup. Through six innings he allowed just four hits and held a narrow 1-0 lead gained on Charlie Gehringer’s run-producing third-inning base hit.
But in the bottom of the seventh, Newsom weakened and the Reds took advantage. Reds cleanup hitting first baseman Frank McCormick opened with a double to left, and outfielder Jimmy Ripple doubled him home to tie the game.
Jimmie Wilson bunted Ripple to third and, following an intentional walk to Ernie Lombardi, light-hitting shortstop Billy Myers lifted a fly ball deep enough into center to allow Ripple to score.
It was only a one-run lead, but it was all Derringer needed. After allowing a base hit to Gehringer to open the eighth, he rolled through the Tiger order, retiring the final six batters he faced to wrap up the 2-1 Series-clinching victory.
1945: Hal Newhouser vs. Hank Borowy
The Detroit Tigers are the only team ever to have sent two 20-game winners to the mound in a Game 7 showdown.
Five years after Newsom couldn’t close the deal against Cincinnati, future Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser got his chance in Wrigley Field against Hank Borowy and the Chicago Cubs.
Newhouser was a 25-game winner in 1945, and in the midst of a three-season stretch in which he accumulated 80 victories. Borowy was a phenom, a war-time fill-in who won 10 games for the Yankees before being traded in midseason to the Cubs, for whom he added 11 more.
The two had met in Game 1 in Detroit, Borowy’s Cubs pasting Newhouser 9-0. They met again in Game 5, Newhouser this time getting the better of it 8-4.
One day later in Chicago, Borowy pitched the final four innings of a must-have 8-7 Cubs win in 12 innings. But that meant Borowy had to start Game 7 on just one day of rest, and he had nothing. After the first three Tigers hit safely, Cubs manager Charley Grimm lifted Borowy in favor of Derringer, now an over-the-hill 38-year-old making his final big league appearance.
The Tigers scored five runs before Derringer managed to get three outs, giving Newhouser all the cushion he needed and then some. It was 6-1 by the end of the second and 9-3 at game’s end, Newhouser going the distance and spreading 10 hits.
1962: Jack Sanford vs. Ralph Terry
Game 7 of the 1962 World Series at Candlestick Park may be the most under-appreciated great game ever played.
Through 120 seasons of World Series play, it remains the only time when both teams had a chance to win the championship based on the outcome of the final at-bat.
The game pitted Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry (23-12) against San Francisco’s Jack Sanford (24-7). Sanford had beaten Terry 2-0 in Game 2, but Terry got even with a 5-3 win in Game 5 played on October 10.
Then several days of rain intervened, allowing the two aces to be fully rested for the decisive seventh game. Through four innings, neither pitcher gave up much of anything. Sanford allowed only a third-inning Tony Kubek single while Terry was working on a no-hitter.
In the top of the fifth, the Yankees got what would turn out to be the decisive break, and it came in the most harmless way imaginable. After Bill Skowron and Clete Boyer singled, Sanford walked Terry to load the bases.
The next batter, Bobby Richardson, hit a routine double play grounder to shortstop Joe Pagan, who turned it as Skowron crossed home with the game’s first run. Neither team would score again.
But they came close, most dramatically in the bottom of the ninth inning. Matty Alou, San Francisco’s diminutive center fielder, dropped down a leadoff bunt single to put the tying run on base. Terry steadied to fan both Felipe Alou and Chuck Hiller, then stared in at Willie Mays.
The Giants all-time greatest player smashed a double toward the right field corner. But Alou, who appeared to get a bad two-out jump, opted to pull up at third base rather than try to score.
With Willie McCovey the next hitter, an unprecedented situation loomed. If McCovey made an out, the Series would be over and New York would win 1-0. If McCovey got a hit, Alou and May would score and the Giants would win.
The future Hall of Famer lined a bullet foul down the right field line, then zeroed in on Terry’s next pitch and shot it viciously on a low line toward right-center. It was a cinch game-winning hit, except that Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson stood perfectly positioned to snare the drive for the out that clinched the 1-0 Series-winning victory for the Yankees.
1985: Bret Saberhagen vs. John Tudor
The 1985 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals is mostly remembered for umpire Don Denkinger’s missed call in the ninth inning of Game 6 that set up Kansas City’s winning rally.
Because of the way it unfolded, Game 7 of the 1985 World Series is recalled largely as an afterthought.
It didn’t set up that way at the outset. The pitching matchup could hardly have been more stellar: Bret Saberhagen (20-6) for Kansas City against the Cardinals’ ace, John Tudor (21-8). Both were coming off their first 20-game winning seasons.
Tudor had won Game 1, scattering eight hits in a 3-1 victory. The Cardinals also won the second game before Saberhagen’s 6-1 performance in Game 3 got the Royals going. When Tudor shut out the Royals 3-0 in Game 4, St. Louis stood within one win of a quick Series finish. But Kansas City won Game 5, Denkinger’s intervention highlighted Game 6, and that sent the decision to a winner-take-all seventh game.
The ballyhooed Tudor-Saberhagen showdown didn’t last long. The Royals scored twice in the second, then kayoed Tudor with a three-run third. A six-run fifth made it 11-0, cementing one of the most decisive routs in Game 7 history.
Saberhagen breezed to the complete game victory, allowing just five baserunners, all of them on singles.
2001: Curt Schilling vs. Roger Clemens
As with 1912, 1940 and 1962, the seventh game of the 2001 World Series is today considered among the elite contests in all of baseball history.
It pitted the three-time defending champion New York Yankees against the relative upstart Arizona Diamondbacks, in only their fourth year of existence.
The starters were, at the time and remain today, legendary. Roger Clemens was 20-3 and completing his sixth of seven Cy Young Award winning seasons. His opponent, Curt Schilling, was 22-6 and runner-up to teammate Randy Johnson in the NL Cy Young voting.
Schilling was the 9-1 Game 1 winner, but Clemens’ 2-1 victory in Game 3 got New York going. Schilling took a no-decision in a 4-3 Game 4 Diamondbacks defeat made memorable by Derek Jeter’s walk-off 10th inning home run against Byung-Hyun Kim.
Befitting the matchup, the pitchers both dominated. Through five innings, Clemens allowed only five hits, Schilling just one. Finally in the bottom of the sixth, Danny Bautista’s double drove Steve Finley home with a breakthrough run for the home team.
The lead didn’t last long. In the seventh, the Yankees strung together three singles, the last of them – by Tino Martinez – tying the game. In the eighth, Alfonso Soriano homered to put New York ahead 2-1.
Next. Ranking the 12 winningest teams in MLB history. dark
With Mariano Rivera on the mound in the ninth, a fourth straight Yankee series win seemed all but assured … but not this time. Mark Grace opened with a single, and an error and Tony Womack’s double to right producing the tying run and leaving the home team one hit away from a win. Rivera hit Jay Bell with a pitch to load the bases, then Luis Gonzalez produced the most famous bat-handle blooper in Arizona baseball history. It settled out of Derek Jeter’s reach in short center, ending a classic 3-2 game.