Hey there Detroit Tigers fans.
We're only 5 days into the 2009 Major League Baseball season and we already have our very first 15-2 game, courtesy of the Detroit Tigers in their home opener, against the visiting Texas Rangers.
Now just think about this for a moment, the Tigers defeated the Rangers by the score of 15-2.
Is it my imagination, or does that go way past the point of being just another double plus blowout?
That kind of outcome in a game is way rare, so rare that it never occurred during the 2008 season, and only happened twice in 2007.
Playing in only their 9th ever 15-2 game, the Detroit Tigers now own the American League’s second best win percentage in 15-2 games, at .667, by way of their 6-3 record, which is second only to the Seattle Mariners perfect 3-0 record.
There is a bit of irony attached to this latest blowout, as the Tigers were not always so fortunate as to be on the winning end of such a lopsided score.
Unfortunately the 1991 Detroit Tigers own the very unsavory distinction of being the only team in American League history to be blown out by the score of 15-2, not once, but twice in the same season!
Their first 15-2 shellacking that year occurred on the road, at the hands of the host Milwaukeee Brewers on May 28th, 1991.
And just a mere 17 games later, it happened again, on the road, this time in Seattle, where Randy Johnson and the Mariners showed their hospitality by methodically, and categorically dismantling the visiting Tigers, in yet another 15-2 rout.
They may be the only American League team to accomplish this ugly feat, but they are not the only Major League team to lose a pair of 15-2 games in the same season.
Since the American League came into being in 1901, the first National League team to lose a game by the score of 15-2 twice in the same season was the 1922 Boston Braves, who lost to both the Brooklyn Dodgers (May 6th) and the Chicago Cubs (June 14th) that year.
The other National League team that got thrashed in a pair of 15-2 losses in a single season will probably in all likelihood never, ever, have it’s onerous record of “fewest games between 15-2 losses” broken.
And that’s because the hapless 1967 Houston Astros managed to not only get beat 15-2 twice in one season, but twice in the span of only… 3 days!
That’s right, 3 days!
While I was hanging out in the Haight-Ashbury on Saturday July 22nd 1967 during the midway point for the “Summer of love”, the Houston Astros were getting pounded by the Pirates, 15-2 in the second game of a four-game series at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennslvania, after being lit up , 9-1, in the series opener the night before.
The next day the Astros responded with an 8-5 win in the first game of a Sunday double header, only to lose the nightcap by the score of… that’s right… 15-2!
Ubelievable!
Two 15-2 losses in the same series, and with only 1 game in between them!
No team will ever duplicate, or surpass that mark of utter futility.
But now let’s get back to the Detroit Tigers and their 15-2 victory over the Texas Rangers on Friday night April 10th, which is what started this whole line of thought in the first place.
With that victory, the 2009 Detroit Tigers became only the 55th team in 109 years of American League history to defeat an opponent by the score of 15-2, with no team having ever done it twice in a single season.
Having only played 5 games so far this young season, the Tigers still have 157 more chances at becoming the first team in American League history to have a pair of 15-2 wins in a single season.
The chances are slim to none, seeing as how no team in 108 years of American League history has done it yet, but then again, someone has to be first, so why not the 2009 Detroit Tigers.
After all, who was the first team in American League history to ever defeat an opponent by the highly improbable score of 15-2?
If you said the 1913 Detroit Tigers, you are correct!
18 games under .500, with only 20 games left in their miserable season, and owning an ugly 57-76 record, the Tigers travelled to Fenway Park in Boston on September 11th, 1913 and trounced the Red Sox soundly in the first ever 15-2 game in American League history, which also ended a 5 game losing streak for the Tigers.
The Detroit Tigers obviously have had a special relationship with 15-2 outcomes throughout their rich history, which leads me to believe that this just might be their year to accomplish something that’s never been done before in American League history, and that’s to win a pair of 15-2 games in the same season.
I, for one, as a diehard baseball fan, would love to see it!
Cheers!
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