An ode to old school workhorse pitching performances

Photo by Rich Pilling/MLB Photos via Getty Images

A tweet crossed my timeline on Sunday and brought me back a decade-plus to revisit one of my favorite pitchers of my lifetime, Tim Lincecum. The wording of it was perfect, describing a time that was only 12 years ago but feels like a full generation.

On this day in 2013, Tim Lincecum threw 148 pitches, struck out 13, and made sure Bruce Bochy didn't dare take him out. "He wouldn't have talked to me the rest of the year if I'd taken him out," said Bochy. Lincecum had thrown 138 pitches before starting

the 9th inning...… pic.twitter.com/epN8zQUHgG

— MLB Digest (@TheMLBDigest) July 13, 2025

It got me thinking about some of the more underappreciated “workhorse” pitching performances from throughout the years. And made me wish we got some more of these in this day and age. Here are a few of my favorites.

Tim Lincecum’s First No-Hitter

June 13, 2013 - San Francisco Giants 9, San Diego Padres 0 (BOX)

In 2013, in the midst of a subpar season, Lincecum turned back the clock and was allowed by manager Bruce Bochy to throw an outrageous 148 pitches in his first career no-hitter, walking four and striking out 13 in the outing. In the age of the scorebug with pitch counts in the corner of the screen, something is jarring about seeing “147” in that clip.

https://x.com/TheMLBDigest/status/1944381297922830696

Years prior, Lincecum had dominated the league from the jump, winning back-to-back Cy Youngs in his first two full seasons for the Giants, 2008 and 2009. He threw 225+ innings in each season, striking out 265 and 261 batters, respectively, and followed those up with two more top-10 Cy Young seasons. His four-year run from 2008-2011 was legendary, going 62-36 with a 2.81 ERA over that span, before all of the early miles on his arm caught up with him.

More importantly, his entrance music was “Electric Feel” by MGMT, which seemed to just fit with the surf/skateboard look that Lincecum was going for. Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony is going with the same walk-up song this year, and I still approve nearly two decades later.

A year after the first no-no, Lincecum threw another no-hitter against the Padres. This time, he needed “just” 113 pitches; the second pitcher in history to throw two no-hitters against the same team.

Pedro Martinez’s (Not) Perfect Game

June 3, 1995 - Montreal Expos 1, San Diego Padres 0, 10 inn. (BOX)

If Tim Lincecum was my favorite pitcher of the late 2000s, Pedro Martinez was, of course, the equivalent of the late 1990s. There’s something special about a so-called “undersized” pitcher making the great power hitters of a generation look foolish, start after start. Coincidentally, both pitchers are listed on Baseball-Reference at an identical height and weight.

Baseball Reference

On June 3rd, 1995, Pedro took the mound for the Expos at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn was in the opposing lineup during a season in which he hit .368, one of his eight batting titles. Pedro proceeded to face 27 Padres batters and retiring every single one of them. On any other day, it would have been a perfect game, adding his name to the group of 24 who had thrown one in MLB history. Unfortunately, Montreal couldn’t score a run, and the game was tied 0-0 after nine innings. With the Expos going ahead 1-0 in the top of the 10th, Martinez returned to finish the job but allowed a leadoff double to Bip Roberts and was taken out of the game. Mel Rojas closed out the 10th inning for the save, and Martinez got a 1-0 win, but it was a small consolation to what should’ve been. The most unjust result of a perfect outing of all time, if Harvey Haddix didn’t exist.

Each of Martinez’s other near no-hitters featured bench-clearing brawls, as Pedro’s starts tended to do frequently. In April of 1994, Pedro had a perfect game in the bottom of the 8th inning against the Reds. Apparently, Reggie Sanders was irritated that he had been thrown inside in his prior two at-bats, and when hit by an 0-2 pitch late in a perfect game, he responded by charging the mound and starting a brawl. Martinez dusted himself off and kept the no-hitter intact until the ninth inning when he allowed a leadoff single but did not get the win in the game.

The third time that Pedro brought a no-hitter into the ninth inning, as a member of the Red Sox, also involved him being charged on the mound. In this case, it was Gerald Williams in the first inning. I already wrote way too many words about that game earlier this year in my “Top Ten Brawls in Red Sox History”.

Pedro should have had a perfect game, and he had two other no-hitters that were near misses. Despite his endless accomplishments, Martinez retired without a no-hitter to his name.

CC Sabathia, 2008 Milwaukee Brewers (Game Log)

CC Sabathia played 7 ½ seasons with the Cleveland Indians and 11 seasons with the New York Yankees, but it was his brief time with the Milwaukee Brewers that I’ll remember most. Sabathia was traded on July 7th, 2008, from the Indians to the Brewers as a “rental”, prior to free agency. What he did in the (less than) three months that followed was legendary. The Brewers started Sabathia 17 times in that time period, totaling 130 ⅔ innings. Sabathia threw seven complete games, including three shutouts, in less than a half-season, going 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA. Sabathia started four of the final 12 games of the Brewers’ season, all on 3-days rest. If you think they eased up on his workload in those starts, you’d be mistaken, as Sabathia threw a complete game shutout in Game 162 as the Brewers snagged the lone Wild Card spot by one game.

Baseball Reference

It was as close to a “back in my day” stretch as we’ve seen from any pitcher in the 21st century. The Brewers didn’t have any reason to cap Sabathia’s innings as he entered free agency, but Sabathia had to agree to do so. The aggressive season didn’t noticeably affect Sabathia’s arm as he signed a seven-year deal with the Yankees that offseason, which was later extended as he retired a Yankee in his Hall of Fame career.

Luis Tiant vs. Nolan Ryan

June 14, 1974 - California Angels 4, Boston Red Sox 3, 15 inn. (BOX)

On June 14, 1974, Luis Tiant and Nolan Ryan faced off at Anaheim Stadium. Many articles have been written about this game, including a great one by Alex Speier a year ago. Ryan pitched 13 innings in the game, walking ten and striking out 19, and throwing 235 pitches. In the Speier piece, it’s mentioned that manager Bobby Winkles tried to pull Ryan after 12, but he talked him into throwing the 13th. Tiant, on the other hand, had no such debate with his manager, but he also hadn’t walked ten batters in the game. Tiant pitched to the end, throwing 14 ⅓ innings and finally allowing a walk-off hit in the bottom of the 15th. No pitcher has recorded an out in the 15th inning since that day, and Tiant estimated that he threw 220 pitches.

My favorite part of this story is that Ryan made his next scheduled start on the standard three-day rest. The team tempered his workload to six innings in that outing before ramping back up to the standard complete games for the rest of the month.

Baseball Reference

Tiant was fortunate to get a fourth day in between starts, and yet he would pitch into extra innings in his next start as well, this time getting a W, thankfully.

Baseball Reference

Harvey Haddix: 12 Perfect Innings (L)

May 26, 1959 - Milwaukee Braves 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 0, 13 inn. (BOX)

Haddix’s outing in 1959 makes Pedro’s performance look like child’s play. Haddix, pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, threw 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves, but the score was still 0-0. Haddix finally hit a wall in the 13th and eventually gave up a three-run walk-off home run to Joe Adcock. Of course, since a game like this couldn’t possibly have a normal ending, Adcock passed Hank Aaron while running the bases (Aaron thought the ball landed short of the fence and cut across the infield), and the game is listed as a 1-0 final.

Baseball Reference

Old Hoss Radbourn’s 1884 Providence Grays Season (Baseball Ref. Page)

We can’t have any workhorse pitcher discussion without bringing up the man who was born Charles Radbourn, but came to be known as Old Hoss. Old Hoss Radbourn was part of a two-man pitching rotation for the Providence Grays in 1884. Unfortunately, the other pitcher, Charlie Sweeney, was kicked off the team for pitching while intoxicated during a game, verbally abusing the manager when he made a pitching change, and then being ejected, forcing the team to continue with eight players. Old Hoss was up to the challenge, stating, “I’ll pitch every day and win the pennant for Providence, even if it costs me my right arm.” He basically did just that. As explained on SABR:

Of the remaining 51 games, Radbourn started 41 of them. In those starts, he put up an eye-popping 35-4-1 record, virtually single-handedly driving the club to the pennant. He won eighteen straight from August 7 to September 6, a new major league record, including an incredible 14 victories in August. He started all but one game between August 9 and September 24, amassing a record of 24-4 during the span. That August 7 victory put Providence in first place permanently. To be sure, the daily grind took its toll on the pitcher. Bancroft, who roomed with Radbourn in ’84, later declared, “His showing was all the more remarkable and phenomenal when one knows that this great pitcher suffered untold agony in endeavoring to attain the goal for which he worked so hard and so pluckily. Morning after morning upon rising he would be unable to raise his arm high enough to use his hair brush.

Old Hoss already had the record for most wins in a season, tallying 48 in the previous season. In 1884, he finished the season at 60-12 with a 1.38 ERA, over 678 ⅔ innings. Believe it or not, the wins are still a single-season record to this day. However, his innings fell just short of the record (680) held by the monopoly guy.

Wikipedia | Will White

Of course, Radbourn’s greatest contribution to society was that he was allegedly the first person to be photographed giving the middle finger. While some believe it is a cigar in his hand, I choose to believe the legend to be true of my hero, Old Hoss.

Wikipedia

I didn’t go into this week intending to link Tim Lincecum to Old Hoss Radbourn, but the All-Star Break will do some weird stuff to people. Friday at 2:20 at Wrigley Field can’t come soon enough.

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