To put Jo-Jo Reyes’ winless streak into perspective, a certain utility player for the Phillies has 127 2/3IP less than Jo-Jo and one more victory. My reasoning for writing this article is not to waste a minute or so out of everyone’s life to tell you that Jo-Jo Reyes is bad, we all know that. The truth is though he, when placed in the context of history, is not THAT bad. Certainly not bad enough to hold one of the three longest losing streaks in baseball history for a starting pitcher.
The last pitcher to make 28 consecutive starts without recording a W was Matt Keough of Oakland A’s fame (with through compliments around liberally here at That Guy!). Matt Keough went 2-17 in 1979, his sophomore season in the big leagues, surely killing many fantasy teams that year. However, Keough was named to the All-Star Team in his rookie season for the 1978 Athletics, recording an ERA of 3.24 that belied his 8-15 won-loss record. He also went on to have a respectable career, even playing for the Yankees in the 1980’s, so you know he had to be good.
What Jo-Jo, and to a better extent Keough represent, is the fact that wins is the most overrated stat for a pitcher. Jo-Jo has a 4.70 ERA this year and in the AL East that’s really not that bad at all. He is notorious for giving up 1st and 2nd inning runs (see Meyers, Brett for similar examples) which can demoralize an offense when they haven’t even spit out their first batch of sunflower seeds to see themselves down 5-0 (See yesterday’s box score). He has also pitched some great games with Atlanta and Toronto during this losing streak In his May 20th start against Houston he hurled 7 innings of shutout ball got zero run support.
We know that W’s are overrated thanks to Kings Felix’s Cy Young Trophy. Jo-Jo Reyes just shows us the same thing by being as far away from a Cy Young as a starter as humanly possible.
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