Craig '63

[Guest Edgy DC]

A cool recent post at UMDB on Roger Craig's 1963 fortunes:
________________________

In 1963, Roger actually lost SIX games where he gave up one run.

On April 14 he lost in Milwaukee 1-0 in ten innings. Roger pitched a complete game.

On May 19 he lost the first game of a doubleheader in LA, 1-0. Sandy Koufax pitched a two-hit shutout for the Dodgers.

On June 22 he gave up one run in eight innings to the Phillies at the Polo Grounds. Galen Cisco gave up another run in the top fo the ninth and the Mets lost 2-0.

On July 27 he gave up a leadoff homer to John Bateman in the eighth inning for the only run of the game as the Mets lost in Houston, 1-0.

On September 13, he gave up a run in the ninth to those same Colt .45s as Houston won at the Polo Grounds, 1-0.

And on the last Wednesday of the season, September 25, he gave up a first inning unearned run (due to his own error) at Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers beat him again, 1-0. Koufax pitched five innings as a tune- up for the World Series.

The average run support Roger got during his 31 starts in 1963 was 2.3 runs per game. He did pitch some stinkers during the year but he also ran into some bad luck.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The '63 Mets were worse than the '62 Mets in a lot of ways: The pitching was better but the offense considerably worse, and they made the exact same number of errors.

Pythagoreus says they "deserved" to win the same number of games both years: 50.

[Frayed Knot]

1963 was a bad year for hitting in general. After the 'expansion jump' that kicked up the offense in '61-'62 ('61 especially) 1963 started the nosedive that bottomed-out in 1968 and led to the change in pitching mound and strike zone.
In all that '63-'68 span was probably the most hitting-challenged since the dead-ball era.

MLB averages:
1962: R/G = 4.46; BA/OBA/SLG = .258/.326/.393
1963: R/G = 3.95; BA/OBA/SLG = .246/.309/.372

[Guest Edgy DC]

Even after accounting for that, though, the team drop'd from an OPS+ of 82 in 1962 to 73 in 1963. Tough guys to pitch for.

That crappy offense of 2009 even managed a 92. The 1980ers even got an 88, and they had three entire positions fail to hit a homer --- which is hard to do without trying.

[Frayed Knot]

So, IOW, when comparing the '63 NYM bats to the '62-ers (who were pretty bad to begin with) the 2nd year fellows fell even further below a standard which itself had headed south from the previous year. And then Craig, to heap bad upon worse, frequently got the short end of even those efforts.

Good thing us CPFers were wise enough to still rank him as 3rd best Met that year.