Bailey Ober Throws Historic Complete Game… and Not Just Because It’s 2024 and Nobody Does That Anymore
Bailey Ober has had an up and down 2024 season with the Minnesota Twins. He came in as a legitimate possibility to win the No. 2 starting role, after Sonny Gray departed in the offseason. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how the first half of the season has played out.
Entering Saturday’s start in Oakland vs the Athletics, Ober had a 4.81 ERA, 1.192 WHIP, 82 ERA+ and a -4 runs above replacement. Had the regular season ended this morning, Bailey Ober would have finished with the worst ERA, ERA+ and RAA of his career. Luckily, it did not.
Bailey Ober has historic performance for Minnesota Twins vs Oakland Athletics
Because this afternoon, the MN Twins offense got Bailey a big early lead and he started peppering the zone, like any good pitcher should when in that situation. And today was one of those days where A’s batters never stood a chance, once his 6-9, 260 lb frame got locked in.
#MNTwins Bailey Ober has been dominant today vs. #Athletics. Pinpoint control, only 81 pitches after 8 innings. He'll have a chance for a complete game. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/1Yw2A2RA3Z
— Talkin' Twins (@TalkinTwins) June 22, 2024
How good was he? Historically good. It took Ober just 89 pitches to get all 27 outs needed to close out the Oakland Athletics on Saturday. Impressive, right? What if I told you he also K’d 10 A’s hitters? Impossible, right?
Yeah, pretty much. In the end, his line (9 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 10 K) is pretty much impossible, given his pitch count. The only runs he gave up were two solo homers.
Statcast has tracked MLB data back to 1988. According to Sarah Langs (MLB.com) only one other time in those 35+ years has a Major League Baseball pitcher thrown a 10+ strikeout complete game in under 90 pitches.
The only other was a David Cone (Yankees) perfect game in 1999 vs the Montreal Expos… a team that hasn’t existed for 20 years (last season was 2004). It was also the least amount of pitches needed for a Twins pitcher to complete a game since 2005, and the fifth least in franchise history.
#MNTwins fewest pitches in a nine-inning complete game:
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) June 22, 2024
74 — Carlos Silva, 2005
80 — John Smiley, 1992
85 — Bill Krueger, 1992
88 — Rick Aguilera, 1989
89 — Bailey Ober, 2024
Ober recorded a career-high 10 strikeouts and retired the last 17 batters he faced.
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