Now THAT'S a Pitching Matchup!

My birthday is October 4th, which means that while it usually is just after the season ends, sometimes it falls on the final weekend of the season. Recently, I was curious if there were any games played the day I was born, so I did a little research. 

It turns out that the only game played that day was game two of the ALCS between a pair of 101-win squads: the Orioles and the A's. Baltimore won 5-1 behind Mike Cuellar, with Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell & Elrod Hendricks hitting home runs. The win pushed the O's to a 2-0 series lead, and they would finish off the sweep the next day in Oakland.

More interesting than that though, was something else I noticed. Less than a week earlier at Shea Stadium in New York, the Mets hosted the Cardinals in what was the second-to-last game of the season for each team. With both teams already eliminated from pennant contention, it wouldn't seem to be all that noteworthy of a game.

What made the game particularly interesting to me looking back at it almost 50 years later was the two starting pitchers: Starting for the Cardinals was their big southpaw, Steve Carlton. Going for the Mets was their young flame-throwing righthander, Nolan Ryan. It would be the last game either man would pitch for his team, with both of them getting traded in the off-season. They would eventually become the two greatest strikeout pitchers in MLB history! 

The Cardinals would immediately regret trading Carlton, as the next season he would have one of the great pitching seasons in history, assembling a 27-10 record for a Phillies team that went 30-85 when he didn't pitch. He won the Cy Young Award with 310 strikeouts and a 1.97 ERA, and even finished top-5 in the MVP voting. All told, post-trade he would accumulate 252 wins and more than 3,000 strikeouts over the remainder of his career.

The results for Ryan were just as quick, and every bit as bountiful! Pitching for the Angels in 1972, Ryan would lead the American League in strikeouts (329), shutouts (9), and hits/9 innings pitched (5.3!) on his way to a 19-16 record and a 2.28 ERA. After leaving the Mets, Ryan would win another 295 games, strike out over 5,000 more batters, and toss seven no-hitters!

The one thing that would plague Ryan (especially in those earlier days of his career) was wildness. He would go on to lead the league in walks in six of the next seven years, including two seasons where he walked over 200 batters. On that day in September of 1971, this wildness reared its ugly head as he walked four of the five batters he faced, before being pulled from the game without even retiring a batter.

Carlton had more success that day, picking up his 20th win of the season. Perhaps reaching that milestone gave him the confidence to ask for $5,000-&10,000 (reports vary) more than the Cardinals were offering on his 1972 contract. Cardinals owner Gussie Busch found such a contract dispute to be impertinent and had Carlton traded to the last place Phillies for hurler Rick Wise. The rest, as they say is history.