Brandon Morrow and Other Blue Jays Pitching Gems

Well, now is as good of time as any to write my first post. On Sunday, I went to my first Blue Jays game this season, and happened to witness one of the greatest pitching performances by a Blue Jays pitcher ever. What a game to see! As you probably already know, Brandon Morrow pitched a complete game, one-hit shutout with 17 (17!) strikeouts, and gave up the only hit with two outs in the ninth inning.

So the question is: where does this rank in terms of the greatest games ever pitched by a Blue Jay? Certainly, the best game ever pitched was probably on September 2, 1990, when Dave Stieb no-hit the Cleveland Indians for still the only no-hitter in Blue Jays history.

Here is a list of all games in which a Blue Jays pitcher pitched at least 9 innings and gave up 1 or no hits.

There have been a total of 15 games in which a Blue Jays pitcher threw at a complete game with only one hit. It is interesting to note that the only time a run was scored against in these games was the September 27, 1998 game, where Roy Halladay had a no-hitter through 8 innings before giving up a home run to Bobby Higginson in the 9th (in his rookie season nonetheless!). But Morrow did not simply throw a complete game one-hit shutout. He also struck out seventeen batters. Here is another list of games in which a Blue Jays pitcher has thrown a one-hitter with at least 10 strikeouts.

As you can see, only three times has a pitcher for the Jays gotten at least 10 strikeouts and only given up one hit. And they have all happened this year! Morrow on Sunday, Brett Cecil in May (8 IP), and Ricky Romero in April (also 8 IP). Pretty amazing.

So this game was the first time a Blue Jays pitcher has thrown a complete game one-hitter (also a shutout) with at least 10 strikeouts. And again, he struck out 17 batters, which is the second highest total in Blue Jays history, only behind Roger Clemens' 18 on August 25, 1998 (he's also the first Blue Jays pitcher besides Roger Clemens to get at least 15 K's).

I think the conclusion here is that this was probably either the best or second-best game ever pitched by a Jays' pitcher (up for grabs with the no-hitter). If you want to judge a game by Bill James' Game Score, it ranks as the highest game score ever recorded by a Blue Jays pitcher. It was an amazing performance, and we all hope that Morrow can continue pitching this well the rest of this season and his career!