Hi Everyone —
Blyleven No. 35 for the season is in the books, and it was extra special because it took 10 innings for the Cubs to beat the Guardians 1-0. Chicago’s Cade Hoton threw seven shutout innings and then gave way to four Cubs pitchers, the last being Chris Flexen, who is now 5-0 after throwing a 1-2-3 tenth inning.
The Cubs scored their one run in the most 2025 way too — Nico Hoerner was the zombie runner, he moved to third on a Michael Busch groundout, he scored on Matt Shaw’s sac fly. If not for the zombie runner rule, the Cubs and Guardians might still be playing as you read this. You can decide whether that would have been a good or bad thing.
The Guardians have now been shut out 10 times this season — they could break their post-Deadball record of 20 shutouts set in 1968, but it would take a particularly depressing second half of the season. You can’t count them out, though. They’ve been shut out seven times in the last month.
The Royals, Pirates and Rangers have also been shut out 10 times this season. Their post-Deadball team records:
Kansas City: 18 (1971)
Pittsburgh: 22 (1968)
Texas: 27! (1972)
Oh, for fun, I went back to look at the Pirates’ 22 shutouts in 1968.
Two were by Bob Gibson
Two were by Steve Carlton
Two were by Juan Marichal
One each by Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro and Don Drysdale.
There’s a reason shutouts felt like more fun back then.
Happy fourth, everyone.
From Brilliant Reader Jon:
The other day, Tim Hill threw a strike on all 11 of his pitches? Any idea what the most pitches thrown in a single game is “strikes only?” Whatever weird AI thing Google does now has no idea what I’m trying to find out. It did tell me that a baseball game pitched with a lot of strikeouts, which depends on throwing a lot of strikes, is a rare and impressive feat. 🤦♂️
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