With his shutout Sunday night, Madison Bumgarner has become one of the greatest pitchers in World Series history. In four starts, over three World Series, Bumgarner has won all four, allowing a single run in 31 innings. And that run was all but meaningless: It came in the seventh inning in Game 1 against the Royals last week, with Bumgarner’s Giants ahead, 7-0.
Bumgarner now holds the record for lowest career earned run average (0.29) in the World Series among pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched. The mark is impressive by any standard. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that Bumgarner is the best World Series pitcher ever.
That distinction belongs to Christy Mathewson, who also did his pitching for the Giants (when they were in New York). It’s not even close, either.
Mathewson started 11 World Series games in the early 20th century, giving up a combined 11 runs, for an E.R.A. of 0.97. In 1905, he had arguably the finest baseball postseason performance: three games, three shutouts. He had two days of rest between the first two starts and a single day of rest between the second and third. The Giants and the Philadelphia A’s split the two games Mathewson didn’t pitch. But thanks to Matty, as he was known, the Giants won the Series in five games.
Pitching has of course changed in the last century. It’s harder now, with the global talent pool, the physical conditioning of batters and other factors. But given Mathewson’s dominance, we’ve invented an index to measure the World Series performance of pitchers — and named it the Matty Score.
We calculate it by taking a pitcher’s career innings in the Series and subtracting three times the number of earned runs he gave up. That sets a high bar, we realize. A complete game in which a pitcher gives up three runs earns a Matty Score of zero. A shutout is worth nine points. An inning of shutout relief is worth 1 point. The intention is to reward both quantity and quality.
We don’t intend this index as the final word on World Series pitching — there are clearly more complicated, rigorous ways to measure pitching quality — but it does offer some good perspective. Bumgarner now has the highest Matty Score of any pitcher in recent decades, having passed Mariano Rivera (36⅓ innings, 4 earned runs) on Sunday night. Other recent pitchers on the list include Jon Lester (21 innings, 1 earned run) and Tom Glavine (58⅓ innings, 14 earned runs).
After Mathewson, the top of the list includes some of the game’s greats: Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Lefty Grove, and, before he became a full-time hitter, Babe Ruth. It also includes Eddie Plank, who had the misfortune of losing Game 1 of the 1905 World Series to Mathewson, 3-0.
Bumgarner may yet get another chance this week to rise further up the list, or slide back down it, since negative Matty Scores are always possible. If the Royals win Game 6 on Tuesday night, Bumgarner will probably be available to pitch out of the bullpen in Game 7. And pitching in relief is something of a tradition for the best World Series starters. Koufax, Grove, Plank, Waite Hoyt and many others have done it.
