Wayne Garland and the crazy way in which he won his 20th game

[Tony-OH]

Wayne Garland will always mostly be know as the guy the Indians gave a 10 year, $2.3 million contract to after his 1976 season with the Orioles in which he went 20-7 with a 2.67 ERA. 

Garland was only 25 years old when he put up those numbers so the Indians thought they were getting a stud for a long time. They ended up getting a 26-year old who went 13-19 in with a 3.60 ERA (110 ERA+) in 38 starts over 282 innings, including 21 complete games in his first season. Perhaps an intense workload of 515 innings he threw between his 25 and 26-year old season, including 25 complete games, was too much, and by his 1978 spring training, his arm and shoulder started hurting. He tried to pitch through it, but after pitching to a 7.89 ERA over six starts, he was shut down and found to have a torn rotator cuff. 

After the injury, Garland was pitched to a 5.02 ERA (82 ERA+) over 55 games including 44 starts over the next three seasons before the Indians released him, despite five years left on his contract.

But let's go back to that 1976 season. Garland was a former first round pick by the Orioles who was starting his 3rd season in the Orioles bullpen despite his desire to start. He and Earl Weaver did not get along and Garland felt Weaver would not give him the opportunity he thought he deserved. After the Orioles traded Ken Holtzman and Doyle Alexander to the New York Yankees in June, a spot in the starting rotation opened for Garland. He made the most of his opportunity by going 17-7 with a 2.75 ERA over 24 starts (yes, he got a decision in every single start over this period) to finish 20-7.

But considering that he and Weaver never got along, it's apparent Weaver let him pitch as long he wanted to in that final start in order to get that magical 20 wins plateau.

The Orioles were sitting at 88-70 in 2nd place, but were seven games behind the Yankees and eliminated from post season. With Garland sitting on 19 wins, Weave sent him to the mound for his final start of the year against the Brewers who were 65-90 and in last place.

It was the first game of a double header and it pitted Garland against Baltimore native, 20-year old Moose Haas, who was making his 2nd major league start.

The Brewers got on the board first with a two-out, two run single by Jim Ganter after Garland had loaded the bases with two singles and walk. The )rioles got one back in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead to 2-1. 

A walk and an RBI double by Sixto Lezcano put the Brewers up 3-1 and it did not look good for Garland to win that 20th game. An RBI groundout by Reggie Jackson cut the lead to 3-2 by the end of the 3rd.

Garland held the Brewers down in the 4th, but the Orioles ended Haas' homecoming in the 4th when he was replaced after allowing a single and walk without retiring a batter. The Orioles would end up scoring two off reliever Eduardo Rodriguez (the original one) to give Garland a 4-3 lead.

Garland held the Brewers in the 5th and 6th, but in the 7th, the Brewers tied the game at 4-4 after Garland allowed three singles in the inning. 

Unfortunately, there is no pitch count available for this game, but you have to imagine Garland's pitch count was pretty high by this point as he had allowed four runs on 10 hits and two walks over those seven innings.

in the 8th, the Brewers were on Garland again getting single, a sacrifice, then another single to make it first and third with one out. Garland though looked like he might get out of it when he struck out Von Josua with the go ahead run on third. But with two outs, future Hall of Famer Robin Yount singled to right field scoring the go ahead run to make it 5-4. 

Now most manages would have pulled Garland but Weaver left him out there despite having two guys on and now having allowed five runs on 12 hits and the two walks. Garland got Scott o pop out to second to get out of the inning. 

Leading off the bottom of the 8th, light hitting catcher Dave Duncan led off the inning with a solo home run to tie the game so Weaver sent Garland back out for the 9th. 

Despite a lead off single by Mike Hegan and sacrifice to put him on second, Garland got out of the inning unscathed, keeping the game 5-5.

The Orioles though were not able to get anyone on base against Rodriguez who was still pitching so the game went to the 10th inning.

Garland, who was only 26 years old and had allowed five runs on 14 hits and two walks, was sent back out there to get that win. Whether Weaver was trying to help Garland get that 20th win or whether he was saving his bullpen for game two is unknown, but it's pretty crazy, even in these days that Garland would still be sent back out there.

In the top of the 10th, Garland got two quick outs before that pesky Von Joshua singled and stole second to put the go ahead run on second. Garland though got Yount to ground out to Brooks Robinson for a 5-3 to end the threat. 

Rodriguez got the Orioles 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 10th and off to the 11th inning they went.

Garland went back out there and put up his first 1-2-3 inning since the 1st inning taking the Orioles to the bottom of the 11th.

Finally, in the bottom half of the inning, Al Bumbry single and Booby Grich then connected for a long two-run game winning homer to deep left field. Garland had won his 20th game.

Again, we have no idea how many pitches Garland threw, but he faced 50 batters in the game and allowed 17 base runners so even if you average 3.5 pitches per batter, Garland probably threw somewhere in the vicinity of 175 pitches.

Garland got the 20th win, and then got the huge contract from the Indians after turning down a $40,000 offer from the Orioles in mid-season (smart move). But even though he had one more workhorse year with the Indians, you have to wonder if he sold his shoulder/arm for that 20th win. 

Garland had only faced over 40 batters in one other start before this game (43) and only faced 40 or more batters in a game three more times with the Indians, never going over 41. 

By retrospect, 30-year old Jim Palmer, who led the team in 1976 with 315 innings and a career high 25 complete gams, never faced more than 41 batters in a game and only twice that season faced over 40. In fact, glancing through Palmer's game logs, he rarely ever faced more than 39 batters in a game. It was rare for him to hit the 40 mark and if he did, it was usually 40 or 41 batters at most.

So was Weaver final parting shot was allowing Garland to pitch himself to his own demise? Guess we'll never know but I doubt too many pitchers won their 20th game while facing 50 batters in a game.

 

 

 

 

 

   

[SteveA]

That was Bobby Grich's next to last game as an Oriole and he had the walkoff.   Nice.

He will always be the biggest "one that got away" to me, even ahead of Finley, Schilling, Markakis, Cruz, etc.   He was one of my favorite Orioles and I absolutely hated seeing him in another uniform for the rest of his career.

And there are guys in the Hall of Fame that I personally think should be below Grich on the HoF peckig order.

[jabba72]

That just would never happen in todays game pitching 11 innings. I wish the game would go back to that but with max velocity now more important than how long you can stay in the game, it just seems the trend keeps going to fewer and fewer pitches for starters. 

[Just Regular]

1976 - this

1998 - BP unveils Pitcher Abuse Points (Adley Rutschman born)

2021 - Corbin Burnes throws Peak Pedro FIP, but is "physically unable to pitch" (or at least his manager says so) an elimination game on something short of his proper amount of rest.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2021/10/12/brewers-corbin-burnes-wasnt-ready-start-short-rest-game-4/6101760001/

I doubt the parties will get past core economic issues to roster issues, but pitches-as-data and putting machine learning on patterns and Rhapsodos on talents like Burnes (and please please Grayson) and also "every AAAA arm with a trick" has hitters in a world of hurt.   I do have some hope that even though they can't/won't multi-task this now, maybe it is something a Competition Committee could do during the run of the next CBA.

I am not a Baltimore Sun subscriber, but if their archive digitized it, the game story if it had any Garland and/or Earl quotes could be fun.

[Tony-OH]

17 hours ago, SteveA said:

That was Bobby Grich's next to last game as an Oriole and he had the walkoff.   Nice.

He will always be the biggest "one that got away" to me, even ahead of Finley, Schilling, Markakis, Cruz, etc.   He was one of my favorite Orioles and I absolutely hated seeing him in another uniform for the rest of his career.

And there are guys in the Hall of Fame that I personally think should be below Grich on the HoF peckig order.

I ran an OOTP sim where I took over the 1976 Orioles and was able to resign both Grich and Reggie. I won the AL East six straight years from 1977-1982 (when I stopped), went to the World Series three times and won one World Series. The Angels were the other dominant AL team and the Padres for some reason became super strong in the 80s.

Saying this, my teams under performed in the World Series and even in the AL championship where I had the best record in 5 of of those years. i should have fired myself for only winning one WS!

[Tony-OH]

18 hours ago, SteveA said:

That was Bobby Grich's next to last game as an Oriole and he had the walkoff.   Nice.

He will always be the biggest "one that got away" to me, even ahead of Finley, Schilling, Markakis, Cruz, etc.   He was one of my favorite Orioles and I absolutely hated seeing him in another uniform for the rest of his career.

And there are guys in the Hall of Fame that I personally think should be below Grich on the HoF peckig order.

As a six times All-Star and after putting up 71 WAR, I agree, he belongs in there especially after they made the Hall of Good with Harold Baines getting inducted. I think he was undervalued because his batting average was never really high and that is overly valued by old school evaluators and HoF voters.

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

As a six times All-Star and after putting up 71 WAR, I agree, he belongs in there especially after they made the Hall of Good with Harold Baines getting inducted. I think he was undervalued because his batting average was never really high and that is overly valued by old school evaluators and HoF voters.

 

Grich has the same career 125 OPS+ as Altuve and Altuve hasn't started his decline yet as a hitter. Grich got on base, played great defense, but did't hit for high averages or rack up multiple 100+ RBI seasons which counted for more with the sports writers back in the 70's and 80's. 

[NedFromYork]

Great stoey, thank you. He got 20 wins and huge payday, have to bend over backwards imo to view that as a parting shot by Earl.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, NedFromYork said:

Great stoey, thank you. He got 20 wins and huge payday, have to bend over backwards imo to view that as a parting shot by Earl.

I just find it interesting. If Early really didn't like him, why would he keep running him out there and give him a chance at 20? did Weaver care that he probably was throwing more pitches than any starter he'd had before? I kinda wish I had the answer, but every quote I read Weaver had nothing nice to say about Garland and vice versa.

[OriolesMagic83]

Earl was not one to shy away from high pitch counts.  I know he allowed Flanagan to pitch a 165 pitch complete game in the 1979 World Series.  Flanagan had won the Cy Young that year.  Flanagan was very good after that, but never reached the level he had in 1979.  Who knows if it had an effect.