Friday, June 05, 2009

An athlete's worst possible day



Yesterday in Major League Baseball saw two of the worst possible days an athlete can have. Toronto's Alex Rios went 0-5 with five strikeouts in a loss to Los Angeles of Anaheim and Detroit's Dontrelle Willis pitched 21/3 innings of no-hit ball but gave up five earned runs on five walks and a hit batsman (the reliever promptly gave up a hit to knock in the inherited runners), and took the loss.

Two thoughts:

1. Rios' day is about as bad a day as possible for a hitter. The only thing that could've made it worse was if he had stranded a bunch of runners in the process (he left on just two) or grounded in to some double plays. But 0-5 with 5 Ks is just horrible.

Willis' day should probably be classified as unusual or frustrating rather than bad. Five runs in 21/3 is far from a pitcher's worst possible outing.

2. How do the worst days in other major sports stack up to these? The football equivalent would likely be a quarterback producing numbers like 6-19, 74 yards, 0 TDs, 4 INTs (read: a typical Sunday for the current 49er starter), or 22 carries, 41 yards, 0 TD, 2 fumbles for a running back.

The closest in basketball would be an off-night for a shooter -- 0-13 FG, 2 points, and so on.

So is Rios' day as bad as it gets? Do share.

7 comments:

george1964 said...

About the only way Rios' day could have been worse was if on one of those at bats he made it to first on a third strike passed ball, then got himself picked off. Otherwise, it doesn't get much uglier.

rstiles said...

That is what is so great about baseball...every so often you will get these goofy stat lines that are great!!!

JMC said...

in hockey, to match these, you'd have to commit 6 penalties and score 3 goals against your own team.

Anonymous said...

waking up in jail 'cause you can't pay child support for your 11 kids with 9 women

GMoney said...

I've got two words to make Alex and D-Train feel better:


Jake. Delhomme.


No one will ever beat his shit-tastic performance against the Cardinals.

HM said...

It ties an all-time MLB record for a 9 inning game, but the record is held by almost 50 guys.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_batter_holds_the_record_for_most_strikeouts_in_1_game

But, that said, setting an all-time record for a sport that has lasted 120 years or so is awfully bad.

I would say it would be the equivalent of going 0 for 10 or more in basketball (Hardaway went 0 for 17, but I bet you less than 50 guys have gone 0 for 10).

Hockey -- being scored on 5 times in the first period and getting pulled as a goalie.

Football -- almost matching Ryan Leaf's performance of a 0 passer rating: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199809200kan.htm

So I would say a 12 or below passer rating.

Or doing what Jim Marshall did in the Super Bowl against the Raiders. I believe the Raiders ran left 30 or more times in the game and right end Marshall had 0 tackles, almost a phsyical impossibility.

Anonymous said...

i mean, i once saw a guy hit into like 9 outs in like 6 at bats, including an around-the-horn triple play.