Wilson Valdez of the Phillies got some time on the mound last night in the marathon game that Philly played against the Reds, and shockingly, he actually pitched pretty well and picked up the win. That got me to thinking of other position players who got time on the mound, and if this has ever happened before. Well, it’s happened plenty of times before, but I’m thinking more recently. I’m excluding any player with more than five innings pitched, to try to weed out those players who started out as position players, but became pitchers, or vice versa. I’m also limiting things to the last thirty years. So let’s see who that gives me…
Brent Mayne, Rockies. Mayne made one appearance on the mound in his career. Aside from Valdez, he’s the only player to meet the critera I listed above. In that game against the Braves (of course it would be the Braves), Mayne allowed one hit and walked a batter, but escaped unscathed. This game wasn’t a marathon game like last night’s Phillies-Reds tilt, it was just a case of Buddy Bell falling into matchup hell for the Rockies. He used all eight relievers in just eleven innings of play, including using FIVE of the eight to get less than three outs. For the record: Rafael Furcal had the hit, and Andruw Jones had the walk. The only legitimate hitter Mayne got out was future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones. The Braves used starting pitcher Tom Glavine to pinch hit for Scott Kamienicki in the inning. It was just one of THOSE games.
Since I can’t have any more fun with position players getting wins, let me take a look at some of the more famous players to get time on the mound. I’m opening up the gates on timeframe in this one, but the five IP maximum is still in effect.
Cap Anson. Member of the 3,000 hit club, and owner of a pretty swank mustache, Cap Anson got two different stints on the hill, in 1883 and 1884, the peak of his career. There are no game logs for the 1800s, but you have to wonder what made Cubs management let Anson pitch in the heart of his career. In the four innings he pitched, he wasn’t as good of a pitcher as he was a hitter: 4 IP, 9 H, 5 R (2 ER), 2 HR, 2 BB, and only one strikeout.
Wade Boggs. Boggs pitched twice in a three season span near the tail end of his career, once for the Yankees in 1997 and once for the Devil Rays in 1999. The 1997 game was weird, because the Yankees were only down 12-4. The Hall of Famer would walk Luis Alicea, get Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson to ground out (not superstars, but guys who’d go on to be solid players over their careers), and strike out Todd Greene. The Devil Rays were down 16-1 to the Orioles when Boggs got into the game, and he threw 1 1/3 innings, allowing three hits and a run, while managing to strike out Delino DeShields.
Ty Cobb. Even the Georgia Peach gets on the mound action. Like Anson, he got action in two separate seasons for the Tigers: 1918 and 1925. In 1925, he’d lead the league in OPS. We don’t have game logs for 1918, but we do have them for 1925, and I can tell you that in his perfect inning of work, it was the second game of a doubleheader against the St Louis Browns. Cobb picked up the save for the Tigers in what looked like a symbolic gesture. I’d assume Cobb faced the bottom of the order, based on how the lineup looks like it would have shook out. Also odd about this game: Hall of Famer George Sisler threw the final two innings for the Browns. He also was not scored upon.
Chili Davis. Davis was a designated hitter by trade, so it was a little funny seeing him get time on the mound with the (then known as) California Angels in 1993. Davis would come into a game that the Angels trailed by 16 runs, and he was the team’s most effective pitcher of the night, going two scoreless innings with no walks or hits, just a hit batter (Jose Canseco, who’d ironically fare much worse while pitching with the Rangers a year later). One of the guys gotten out by Davis was Rafael Palmeiro, the 3,000 hit/500 homer man. Strange things happen in this game.
Dave Kingman. It was 1973, the third year of Kingman’s career, and he was with the Giants. Kingman wasn’t fully established as a power hitting masher quite yet. The Giants threw him on the mound twice, in a pair of blowouts. The first was the first game of a doubleheader against the Reds. When Kingman entered, it was 9-0. He’d end up throwing two innings, and the Reds didn’t swing the bat a lot. They only got one hit, and struck out once. The big damage for Kingman was the four walks he allowed. That’s to be expected, obviously. But the Giants weren’t done. Less than a month later in a blowout against the Dodgers, Kingman was again asked to finish the game. He again threw two innings, but was a little better this time, only walking out two but striking out three, and allowing another pair of runs. In a bit of irony, both of the pitchers who started against the Giants in the Kingman games threw complete games: Don Gullett for the Reds, and Andy Messersmith for the Dodgers.
Just think about that…three Hall of Fame position players threw multiple innings in the majors. This is why baseball is so great. You’re never going to see a linebacker playing quarterback, or a goalie playing forward, or a center running the point. Only in baseball can a player play so completely and utterly out of position, and maybe not destroy his team in the process.
