Jimmy Gobble came into the Detroit-Kansas City game in the 7th inning. The Detroit hitters had already put 9 runs on the board. He walked his first hitter, allowing another run in, but that was charged to Robinson Tejada.
He then got a ground out from Renteria to end the 7th. Too bad his day didn't end there.
In the 8th, he gave up 6 hits. Then retired 2. He then gave up 3 walks and another hit before being lifted. Unfortunately, Leo Nunez allowed all of Gobble's baserunners to score.
So that's 1 inning of work, 7 hits, 4 walks and 10 earned runs.
It's not like Gobble was having a good year. His ERA was nearly 8.00 coming into the game. Leaving the game, it was 11.31.
Now Gobble is no star, even among major league middle relievers. He has had a mostly mediocre-to-bad career, with ERAs in the fives. Except last year, he was really really good. Averaged nearly a strikeout an inning and managed a 3.02 ERA. In fact, I think he was my choice to represent Kansas City in the All-Star game last year. Admittedly, there weren't many options.
With tonight's inning, he has thrown 25.7 innings this year. I did a quick search to find out how many players since 1901 pitched more than 25 innings in a season and finished with an ERA greater than 10.00.
It has happened 25 times, most recently with Scott Elarton last year -- 37 innings at 10.46. Should we be surprised that he pitched for Kansas City?
There are five seasons on the list with ERAs worse than Gobble's. His work isn't done if he wants to set a record.
But here's the most startling record of the 25 players who had at least 25 innings and an ERA over 10.00. Roy Halladay is one of them! And he's the WORST one. He doesn't have the worst ERA in the group...only the 9th worst. But unlike nearly everyone else on the list who pitched around 30 innings, Halladay pitched 67.7 innings at 10.64 when he was 23.
So, if I refined the search to players with an ERA over 10.00 with at least 60 innings pitched, Roy Halladay would be the only guy on the list. If the criteria was 50 innings, we'd add one more: Micah Bowie managed 51 innings of horror in 1999, but his ERA was only 10.24.
