From 1893 through 2024, the records speak of 228 pitchers who amassed at least 20 starts in a season and finished that campaign by averaging less than a hit and walk allowed per inning pitched. In terms of volume of sub-one WHIP years, Walter Johnson claims the biggest piece of this 228-season pie, with nine of them. Johnson’s first came in his second year in the big leagues, a campaign in 1908 that saw the 20-year-old make 30 starts (and six relief appearances) and post a 0.964 WHIP. Few pitchers among this 228 ever went so low in a first or second season; one of them is Paul Skenes, whose debut campaign in 2024 saw him author a 0.947 in 23 starts. Quite thrillingly, Skenes’ second tour is testing the waters to see how much shallower he can go, currently coming in at a 0.931.
Paul Skenes won for the third time in past four starts, working six scoreless innings as the Pirates blanked the Reds.
~Skenes leads the Majors with a 1.94 ERA. There’s only one qualifying NL/AL pitcher in the Liveball Era to be in his first or second season and finish his campaign with a sub-two ERA: Dwight Gooden with his 1.53 in 1985.
~Players to be in their first or second year and lead the AL or NL in ERA, since 1901:
1902 Ed Siever (1.91)
1909 Harry Krause (1.39)
1910 King Cole (1.80)
1911 Vean Gregg (1.80)
1912 Jeff Tesreau (1.96)
1914 Dutch Leonard (0.96)
1926 Lefty Grove (2.51)
1927 Wilcy Moore (2.28)
1935 Cy Blanton (2.58)
1937 Jim Turner (2.38)
1948 Gene Bearden (2.43)
1949 Mike García (2.36)
1950 Sal Maglie (2.71)
1951 Chet Nichols (2.88)
1952 Hoyt Wilhelm (2.43)
1976 Mark Fidrych (2.34)
1985 Dwight Gooden (1.53)
1988 Joe Magrane (2.18)
~In 47 career games, Skenes owns a composite 214 ERA+ and a 0.939 WHIP and has allowed 6.3 hits per nine innings. In baseball history, among all players with at least 50 starts through their first two seasons, Skenes’ current numbers would look like this in relation to the best ever.
*The 214 ERA+ would be the best, ahead of Ed Reulbach’s 186 in 1905-1906 and Dwight Gooden’s 176 in 1984-1985.
*The 0.939 WHIP would be the second lowest, sandwiched between numbers from a pair of pitchers who were doing their work in the 19th century: Ed Morris with his 0.936 in 1884-1885 and George Bradley with his 0.961 in 1875-1876. For a more current taste, the next lowest mark comes from Reulbach, a 0.985.
*The 6.3 hits per nine would be the third lowest, after Reulbach’s 6.0 and Herb Score’s 6.0 in 1955-1956.
Andrew McCutchen drew four walks on Thursday. The 38-year-old is one of 55 players in history to have at least 800 career extra-base hits and at least 1,100 career walks. Arranging the entire group from highest to lowest career OPS+, McCutchen is just a couple of points below Dwight Evans and one ahead of Rusty Staub. This trio makes for an interesting presentation when only looking at their age-22 through age-38 seasons (the span of McCutchen’s career).
| Name | Games | XBH | BB | HR | RBI | TB | Slash Line | OPS+ |
| Staub | 2,345 | 738 | 1,095 | 259 | 1,269 | 3,664 | .286/.370/.443 | 129 |
| Evans | 2,368 | 896 | 1,290 | 368 | 1,308 | 3,997 | .274/.371/.477 | 129 |
| McCutchen | 2,227 | 825 | 1,161 | 330 | 1,134 | 3,777 | .272/.366/.459 | 125 |
Jacob Lopez established a new career high with 10 strikeouts and, also for the first time in any of his 16 career starts, issued no walks – a command performance that brought the Athletics’ lefty his sixth win of the year.
~Lopez posted the 45th start in team history that saw a hurler reach double-digit K’s without a walk, and the first since Cole Irvin had one in 2022. The 45 have some extra-special performances among them, including Catfish Hunter’s perfect game in 1968, Bobby Witt’s one-hit shutout with 14 strikeouts in 1994, and Vida Blue’s 17-strikeout line in 1971.
~Back to Lopez … his line also featured no runs allowed. There are 19 examples of an Athletics pitcher combining 10+ strikeouts with no walks or runs. Lopez is joined by a dozen other hurlers, including Rube Waddell, who is responsible for four. And those four, despite Waddell pitching his last game for the franchise in 1907, are still the most in Athletics history.
In a Mariners win, Randy Arozarena hit his 23rd homer of the year to match his career high. Since becoming a full-time regular in 2021, the outfielder has been remarkably consistent in his longball output, producing, in sequence, 20, 20, 23, 20 and now 23 homers. The career-high matching longball on Thursday pushed this (my) mind toward the question of who, in his career, had the most seasons hitting between 20 and 23 homers without ever having any campaign with more than 23. The answer comes in the form of Marquis Grissom, who had five: he hit exactly 20 on two occasions, and had single years with 21, 22 and his career high, 23.
White Sox center fielder Luis Robert, Jr. went 3-for-4 with a double and a steal, his 100th career theft. With it, the 28-year-old became the fourth player in the franchise’s 125-year-history to accumulate at least 100 steals and 100 home runs; his Pale Hose forebears are Minnie Miñoso, Ray Durham and Alexei Ramírez. Four is a bit on the low side among the 16 current franchises who were in existence long before any expansion took place. The Reds and Yankees tie for the most such players, with 11 apiece. The Pirates and Tigers each have seven, while the Phillies, Braves and Dodgers can each claim six. With five, the Giants and Senators/Twins are just above the White Sox, along with Cleveland and the Browns/Orioles. Below those teams at four, we have the Cubs, Cardinals, Athletics and Red Sox – all with three.
Atlanta’s Drake Baldwin homered twice (his first career multi-jack game) and drove in five runs, not a career high (perhaps surprising considering he’s only made only 61 starts in the big leagues). A couple of notes about the 24-year-old’s evening.
~Baldwin’s big RBI night, coupled with his six-RBI performance on July 21, made him the second player for the Braves’ franchise in the Modern Era to have a pair of five-plus RBI games so early into a career; in 1964, Rico Carty had two.
~Baldwin posted the 16th line by a Braves catcher in the Modern Era to feature two (or more) home runs and at least five RBI. At 24 years and 132 days old, Baldwin is among the youngest of the 16, with only Brian McCann (22 years, 216 days in 2006) and Dale Murphy (23 years, 67 days in 1979) younger.
Agustín Ramírez singled in a run for the Marlins on Thursday – his 52nd RBI of the year. The tally represents the fourth highest for any Marlins first-year player, after the totals from Dan Uggla in 2006 (90), Miguel Cabrera in 2003 (62) and Giancarlo Stanton in 2010 (59).
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.