By Paul Casey Gotham
****Remember, try this without research. Make like Wally, and release your inner James Joyce. Show us your stream of consciousness as you try to decipher the answer.
Some will tell you that to be successful, you need to get a good start. That didn’t always work for me. The year I won my Cy I didn’t even get picked for the all-star game. Imagine that. Getting named the league’s top pitcher and not even appearing in the mid-summer classic. I guess I understand. After all, I picked up 13 of my 22 wins in the second half of the season. Yeah, I won the Cy, but that doesn’t really help you identify me. Let’s see. How many Cy Young winners also lost three games in a playoff series? Last time I checked, not many. In fact, I think I am the only one. Three years in a row we played in the post-season. Three years in a row we went home after the first round. We lost to the eventual Series winner in 1990. I try to forget, but I remember something about Francisco Cabrera eliminating us one of those years. That stuff is painful to think about. I have another dubious distinction: the highest ERA for a pitcher with a winning record. Yeah, that’s me. As fate would have it, the first time I was chosen as an all-star, the season was shortened by a strike. I had 12 wins that year. I can only imagine how many I would have won with a full slate of games.
Who am I?
’90 Series, huh? I have no idea. Weren’t the Twins-Braves ’91? So maybe that means the Reds were perhaps the champs in ’90? So this guy must be an American League pitcher?
I tried. Before my time, though. Wally – take it away…
I think it’s got to be a Pittsburgh Pirate during the Jimmy Leyland/Barry Bonds years… they’re the ones who lost to Cabrera and the Braves in the memorable NLC game 7 on Cabrera’s hit. I remember the slow-footed Sid Bream draggin’ that piano on his back all the way home … just beating the throw …. from Barry Bonds??
So I’m gonna offer that clue and leave it to you guys to slam dunk this answer while I’m on my way to work. Don’t disappoint me … you’ve got a solid hour+.
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember who won the Series in 1990, but the Francisco Cabrera hint helped me on that one. So, it would have to be the Pirates, as Wally said. So, it would have to be Doug Drabek.
The highest ERA for a pitcher with a winning record? That would have to be in one season, right? Drabek had a lifetime ERA of 3.73. He was 12-11, 5.74 in 1997. I’m guessing this distinction is single season, among pitchers who qualified for the ERA title.
1997 must have been his reward for the painful 1993 season, when he was 9-18 with a 3.79 ERA.
Drabek is one of the better examples of some of the horrible moves the Yankees made in the ’80s. After showing some promise in ’86, he was traded to the Pirates for Rick Rhoden and Cecilio Guante. Rhoden had a pretty good ’87 actually, but he’ll forever be linked to that dark period as I recall the game he was used as the DH. Of course, his career .238 batting average was very good for a pitcher, but you get my point. Guante was a total bust as Dave Righetti’s setup man.
Well done, Chas!