On a night when he was clearly not at his best, St. Louis Cardinals’ ace Chris Carpenter still pitched eight scoreless innings en route to a 6-1 victory over the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks.
Carp’s command was off in the early innings as he prevailed for his eighth win of the season despite allowing seven hits, one hit batter and one walk.
It was Carpenter’s second shutout outing of at least eight innings this season. The other was also exactly eight innings in duration, a dominant two-hitter on May 25 in Milwaukee. Carp has yet to pitch a complete game in 2009 as the club remains cautious with their oft-injured ace.
Carpenter also went seven innings in his season opener on April 9. The one run that scored during that outing was unearned. Those were his only three scoreless outings of more than five innings this season.
To help put this into historical context, the always-ready Tom Orf offers an assist with the data.
Friday night’s eight-inning shutout was Carpenter’s 12th in his Cardinals career. That ties for only 13th-best on the club in the last 55 years, or since 1954. Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, pitching in a different era, is the runaway leader with 67 such games.
Dropping the criteria to seven innings with no earned runs, as noted above, Carp has three of those games this season and 19 total as a Cardinal, good for a tie for eighth-most since at least 1954. I found it most interesting to note that the leader, Gibson, collected “just” 68. When I say “just”, I mean not in comparison to others, but to himself.
In other words, only once in 68 career games during which Gibson spun seven innings with no earned runs allowed, did he not remain in the game to do the same thing in the eighth inning, too.
Simply amazing.
All Cardinals hurlers who reached double-digits in number of either eight or seven inning outings with no earned runs allowed in the last 55 years follow.
| Cardinals 1954-2009 | ||||||
| 8 IP-0 ER | 7 IP-0 ER | |||||
| Rk | # | Rk | # | |||
| 1 | Bob Gibson | 67 | 1 | Bob Gibson | 68 | |
| 2 | Bob Forsch | 27 | 2 | Bob Forsch | 35 | |
| 3 | Steve Carlton | 20 | T3 | Matt Morris | 23 | |
| T4 | John Tudor | 19 | T3 | Steve Carlton | 23 | |
| T4 | Curt Simmons | 19 | T5 | John Tudor | 22 | |
| T6 | Larry Jackson | 18 | T5 | Curt Simmons | 22 | |
| T6 | Ernie Broglio | 18 | 7 | Joe Magrane | 20 | |
| 8 | Matt Morris | 15 | T8 | Chris Carpenter | 19 | |
| T9 | Nelson Briles | 14 | T8 | Ernie Broglio | 19 | |
| T9 | Joaquin Andujar | 14 | 10 | Larry Jackson | 18 | |
| T11 | Ray Washburn | 13 | 11 | John Denny | 17 | |
| T11 | John Denny | 13 | 12 | Joaquin Andujar | 16 | |
| T13 | Vinegar Bend Mizell | 12 | 13 | Nelson Briles | 15 | |
| T13 | Joe Magrane | 12 | 14 | Donovan Osborne | 14 | |
| T13 | Chris Carpenter | 12 | T15 | Ray Washburn | 13 | |
| T16 | Bob Tewksbury | 10 | T15 | Bob Tewksbury | 13 | |
| T16 | Lynn McGlothen | 10 | T17 | Vinegar Bend Mizell | 12 | |
| T16 | Reggie Cleveland | 10 | T17 | Jose DeLeon | 12 | |
| T19 | Lynn McGlothen | 11 | ||||
| T19 | Danny Cox | 11 | ||||
| T19 | Reggie Cleveland | 11 | ||||
| T22 | Ray Sadecki | 10 | ||||
| T22 | Larry Jaster | 10 |