Taking Your LUMPs: Major League Baseball's History of Pitchers Failing to Retire a Single Batter in an Outing

Abstract

Taking Your LUMPsMajor League Baseball's History of Pitchers Failing to Retire a Single Batter in an Outing Josh Chetwynd (bio) From Hall of Famers to hurlers who threw just once in the big leagues, Lamentably Unproductive Mound Performances (LUMPs) are a thing. A popular baseball aphorism is that it's a sport built on failure. Famed journalist George Vecsey put it succinctly: Baseball "acknowledges daily failure."1 Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. went into more detail: "Baseball is a game of frustration and failure in many ways," he explained in an 2016 interview.2 "As a hitter, you fail 7 out of 10 times, so you have to figure out how to deal with failure quite a bit." But if that general point is accurate for hitters, it's fair to say that the mirror opposite is true for pitchers. Consider that the league-wide average on base percentage in 2019 was .323.3 Even accounting for sacrifice hits and players who reach on errors, pitchers are typically successful in retiring opposing hitters well more than 60 percent of the time. For that reason, when a player in the starting line up goes 0-for-4 or a pinch hitter strikes out in his only at bat, we may sigh with disappointment, but it certainly doesn't feel odd. After all, we all remember that baseball hitters are set up for failure. But what about when pitchers have comprehensively failed appearances? In other words, they come into a game and were unable to get a single out before being pulled. This type of failure is unexpected. Still, over the years it's happened thousands of times at the major league level. A pitcher entered a contest, faced at least one batter, and failed to retire even one hitter. In the past, some have called this type of pitching performance a "no outer" or, if a run was scored off that unsuccessful pitcher, an "infinite ERA."4 [End Page 155] However, for purposes here, these situations are named LUMPs (Lamentably Unproductive Mound Performances). The reason for this sobriquet is that if there's an expectation that pitchers will offer event the minimum utility of registering a single out, there should be a term which serves as a type of onomatopoeia to describe the ignominy of this difficult and disappointing experience. With the terminology established, this article aims to offer a survey of Major League Baseball's long history of LUMPs. The first thing to know about these situations is that, for the most part, pitchers who've experienced LUMPs at baseball's highest level should not be defined by those moments. Thankfully, most aren't. Consider this: More than two dozen Hall of Fame starting pitchers suffered at least one LUMP in their playing days. Luminaries such as Sandy Koufax, Early Wynn, Red Ruffing, Rube Marquard, Bob Lemon and Red Faber all had at least two in their distinguished careers. Of course, for these greats—and probably many others—there can be extenuating circumstances for such terrible days. For instance, Nolan Ryan, who took three LUMPs in his career, suffered his final no-out start in his last appearance ever on September 22, 1993.5 The Ryan Express faced just six Seattle Mariners batters, allowing them all to reach base—two via hits and four through walks. That said, Ryan may have avoided the LUMP if not for the fact that in the midst of that effort he felt a pop in his elbow, forcing him to leave the mound for the very last time. Similarly, Tom Glavine got a LUMP when he departed against the Chicago Cubs on May 16, 1989, after just four hitters—all of whom collected hits.6 But he would have probably stuck around if not for spraining his ankle. Off-the-field influences can also lead to such performances. Take Whitey Ford's LUMP on May 10, 1954, against the Cleveland Indians.7 The New York Yankees great gave up three runs on a hit and two base-on-balls. He didn't get an out and gave way to reliever Bob Kuzava, who promptly delivered his own LUMP, yielding four hits...