The Best Pitching Performance of Season 2

Nikc Cafardo

I went around to some MLR players and asked them "What was the top pitching performance in the MLR this season?" The answers are just what you expect. "S.A.R. Dinka's no-hitter is the obvious choice." and a bunch of agreements. Some thought Steifel's no-hitter was more impressive. I can't be surprised at anyone thinking a no-hitter is the best performance. That seems like the obvious choice with no other standouts. 

However, less hits doesn't always mean better. Of course it's different when comparing to no hits, but there's no reason to just tunnel it down to those 2 games. After Steifel's no-hitter, Darth Vader correctly pointed out that he relied on many low difference flyouts to get by. In Dinka's no-hitter, he walked plenty of batters on the way to 6 innings of no-hit ball. That's not to say they weren't impressive, it's just that they weren't flawless.

I decided that it was worth researching what really was the best start in the MLR in Season 2. Maybe it is one of the no-hitters, but as of when I started the research, there was no reason to believe they didn't have competition. What I did to rank the best starts was I took every 6+ IP complete game that allowed 1 run or less, and then I found the wOBA against that pitcher for that game, and their Average Difference Per Batter Faced. I then ranked their performance among the others in both categories and took the average of those 2 ranks to find my answer.

The results may be a bit surprising. It's worth noting that any auto-K was ignored when calculating both stats, since the pitcher didn't do anything to help those.

Maybe the first thing you notice is that Steifel is all the way down at #14, and Dinka is even further at #21. There are some other impressive performances near the top that don't get much hype, like Einhorn's start against the Brewers, or Ed Turner's against the Astros. But up on top by himself is Willoughby Hoose, in his Session 3 start against the Athletics. That's what I think is the best start in the MLR to date.

Hoose went a whole 6 innings. Gave up no runs, and only 3 baserunners. 1 was a walk, 1 was a single, and 1 was a double. Along with that, Hoose induced 7 groundouts, including a very high 498 difference. To go along with a lot of groundouts, Hoose got 7 batters to strikeout. Eventually he got Caleb VanVacter to groundout to end a 3-0 victory for his Houston astros (he would later be traded to the Devil Rays).

Heading into the game, the A's were still considered a team to beat in the American League. Astros manager Wilbur Wood tells me that they were "looking forward to proving ourselves against the previous AL representative and with a bunch of pitches on Sal we felt pretty confident". Hoose was scheduled to start this game, as you know, and he was pretty hyped up to be going against the Athletics. That's because his good friend from college, Kid Notcher, was on the opposing team. Hoose had this to say on the matchup he was prepared for: "He's a great player and a tough out. One of the two who got a hit off me that game (a double no less). I was trying to mess with him by throwing out things that he would have recognized like his favorite number. That bit of fun bit me a bit". Maybe it was that fun that helped Hoose stay loose throughout the game.

I decided to sit down with the star himself for a few questions:

NC: How was the season going up until that point?

WH: The Astros came in with high hopes. We had lost a few great players to FA. My partner-in-crime Whitt Bass had left to take over the Devil Rays so that was tough. But we were also able to add some awesome talent during free agency while maintaining most of our core contributors. After an inconsistent first season, we felt we could fly under the radar during season 2 and make some real noise. However, my first game out was probably as bad as it gets. 7 ER over 4.2 innings. Most of that was from my last inning in where the wheels just came off. I clearly was not prepared enough after Spring Training. But coming out of that game I was a angry with myself for letting it get away that much. The team was there to get the win, but I needed to do better. I kind of stored all of that pent up emotion until the next game and was determined to unleash hell the next game.

NC: How did you prepare for that game?

WH: I'm a creature of habit, but there is not much to my habits to begin with. Usually on my off weeks I meditate on the upcoming game and think about different sequences that could work well. I eventually came up up with a game plan. Only difference this week was I wrote the number 7 on a piece of paper and hung it over my locker as a reminder of what I would not let happen this week. After watching Con [Copper] throw game 2 I was ready to go. Woke up on game day, headed over to the field and had my usual large coffee and did my warmups. Meditated a bit more, had a small drop of liquid courage and took the field.

NC: Do you have any other comments on this game?

WH: I don't think I realize just how good that game was until you reached out to me. Looking back it's probably a testament to my better characteristics. Despite being a strikeout pitcher, my K ratio has always been low and I have often suffered in other counting stats such as HRs allowed and hits. But my peripherals such as D/BF have always been quite high and in that game I was just forcing an A's lineup coming off of a Championship appearance to just hit into ground ball after ground ball. The six K's were nice too. What was most important to me though was that W and I have to give credit to my teammates for that, especially DCM, Bongiovanni and McGiles.

There you have it. Maybe you first thought that a no-hitter was the best performance, and maybe you still do. But Hoose's game against the Athletics deserves just as much credit as those do.