In the past two decades many pitchers have come close to Brian Kingman's great, yet dubious achievement of losing 20 games in a single season. And though many have tried, year after year, none have taken the distinguished honor from him. Kingman revels in the limelight as the last twenty-game loser of the Twentieth Century and watches closely as many come close to his milestone, but always wind up falling short. Although losing twenty games is not something most pitchers would wish upon their worst enemy, there seems to be no great stigma attached with losing twenty. James "Pud" Galvin did it ten times during his career and was elected to the Hall of Fame. Steve Carlton did it the season after he won 27. In 1979, Phil Niekro both won and lost 20 games... in the same season. In fact, there are nineteen pitchers enshrined at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown who have lost 20 games in a season, including Carlton, Cy Young, Walter Johnson and Robin Roberts. Kingman had an ERA of less than four, completed 10 games and pitched 211 innings during his milestone season of 1980, where his teammates supported him with an average of 2.9 runs per game. If Kingman were to have pitched in the year 2000 and posted his stats from 1980, he would have been sixth in ERA, 10th in innings pitched, and his 10 complete games would have led both leagues. So is losing twenty a fluke? Bad Luck? Karma? Or a combination of the above? Ask Omar Daal who went from almost winning twenty in 1999 to almost losing twenty in 2000.
|
|
