On April 17th, John Smoltz and the Braves shut out the Marlins by a score of 8-0. Still being closely monitored Smoltz lasted just five innings. These five innings were all the Braves needed from Smoltz, though, as he twirled a tremendous game; he did not give up any runs and struck out ten en route to his third win. On Baseball Tonight, Tim Kurkjian mentioned that this was the first time in over 100 years that a pitcher recorded a win while going for the exact line of 5 IP, 0 ER, and 10 K.

Though Retrosheet and the B-R Play Index do not have the game-by-game data capable of checking this assertion it is definitely true that Smoltz is the only pitcher to record this line since 1956. With that in mind I thought it would be fun to look at some more obscure pitching lines. To qualify as obscure there could be no more than three owners of the pitching line in question.

WINS

• 5 IP, 8 ER, 0 K: Andy Pettitte, 9/29/07 at BAL
• 5 IP, 8 H, 6 BB: Dan Reichert, 7/31/99 at TEX
• 6 IP, 4 HR, 5 K: Jeremy Bonderman, 6/15/07 at PHI, Jim Brower, 9/24/99 at TOR, Mike Mussina, 5/19/96 vs SEA
• 9 IP, 8 BB, 12 K: Nolan Ryan, 5/19/77 vs MIN AND 5/19/74 at MIN

That is not a typo: Nolan Ryan, in the span of four years and against the same team, posted the same obscure line.

LOSSES

• 9 IP, 0 BB, 12 K: Roger Clemens, 6/16/97 vs ATL
• 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H: Jerry Robertson, 8/21/69 vs SD, Don Sutton, 6/10/68 vs NYM, Catfish Hunter, 9/18/67 vs MIN
• 6 IP, 8 K, 2 pickoffs: Pat Zachry, 6/26/76 at HOU

Only three pitchers since 1956 have recorded the 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H line and all three came in consecutive years between 1967 and 1969.

These are just some examples of interesting and obscure pitching lines. If anybody else has some good ones post them in the comments. We can have a contest to help discover the most obscure pitching line.