Just when people are thinking that Randy Johnson is getting too old he goes out and tosses a perfect game! He turns 41 soon.

When you factor in his 13 strikeouts, it's possibly the second most impressive game ever pitched in the history of baseball.

I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Bill James. To call him a statistician would be greatly oversimplfying, but basically that's what he is.

He was really the first guy to understand the importance of on base percentage, and he did a lot of work in figuring out how to determine things like the affect of the park on hitter's statistics, how minor league stats would project to the majors, etc.

Anyway, one of the statistics he developed was something called "Pitcher's Games Scores", a way to compare one pitching performance vs. another by assigning numerical values to to the factors that go into a pitcher's performance.

The goal was to develop a scale based on 100, so you could look at a pitcher's line in a boxscore, compute his game score, and have an idea, on a scale of 1-100, about how good his game was compared to others. He wanted an average game to be about 50, a great game to approach 100, and a terrible game to approach 0.

The formula he came up with was as follows:

Start with 50
Add one point for every batter the pitcher retires
Add two points for each inning the pitcher completes after the fourth inning
Add one point for each strikeout
Subtract one point for each walk
Subtract two points for each hit
Subtract four points for each earned run allowed
Subtract two points for each unearned run allowed

Based on the above, Johnson's game score last night was 100, right on the button.

Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game in 1965 with 14 strikeouts, for a game score of 101.

Although it's possible to exceed 100 if you pitch into extra innings, my guess is that these two games are the only time ever that a pitcher has hit 100 in nine innings.

That was great! I watched it last night on TBS. The Braves didn't have a chance. His control was unbelieveable - only once did he get to a 3-ball count. Johnson is probably the best lefty of my lifetime (1986-).

I watched the game last night too. It was unbelievable. As a Braves fan I couldn't believe they were getting clobbered like that. But considering half the players we had last year were traded or on DL I think the Bad News Bears could beat them now.

Cudos to The Big "Eunich".

Very interesting plaw... I heard only 6 of the 27 outs made it even to the outfield. And as Freddie C. said, only one batter went to a 3 ball count. I wonder how this compares to Koufax.

Unbelievable. I wish I could have seen it.

I checked Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters, and came up with these three:

1973: 17 Ks, 4 BBs, Game Score 100
1990: 14 Ks, 2 BBs, Game Score 99
1991: 16 Ks, 2 BBs, Game Score 101

Those were his three best. The others had fewer strikeouts and more walks.

Interesting how his best one was his last one.

A perfect game at 40! Shows that in sports you're never too old for greatness.

What a performance! Peter Gammons said that now you have to consider RJ in the elite class of southpaws to have ever played. Sucks to be a Braves fan right now: get K'd 18x vs the Brewers Ben Sheets and then the Big Unit. I'm not losing any sleep over it, the Braves should have never left Milwaukee IMO.

Plawrence - try checking Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout, 1 hit game against the Astros in '98. That has to be close to 100.

My calculation comes up to 105 points. It MIGHT be less, since Wood hit a batsman (Craig Biggio) in the game, and there's no subtraction of points listed for that.

What a game indeed! We are witnessing a great piece of history, ladies and gentlemen. Only the 17th perfect game in baseball's long history! Randy has proven to the world just how high caliber of a pitcher he is after all these years. Did you see Turner Field? Every Braves fan was cheering for his accomplishment, and he deserved it too.

I forgot about the Kerry Wood game. Even deducting 1 point for the HB, it's still probably the highest 9 inning game score in history.

Both games are impressive in their own way. A perfecto for Johnson, yet a 20 strikeout game is even rarer than a perfect game. And a one-hitter besides.

I checked the original Bill James essay in which he introduced Game Scores. Nothing mentioned about a deduction for hitting a batter, which was surprising since it certainly has at least the same negative value as a walk.

What an amazing achievement for Randy! Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the game..I think I was watching a different ball game instead...lol However, I did get to see the clip at the end where the catcher came up to him, and thought that funny and sweet! So cool!

Calling Bill James a statistician is like calling this web site just another tribute page!

Based on the formula, a 100 is tough to achieve in nine innings without tossing a no-hitter. You'll "gross" an 87 just for a complete game. After that, you need to offset your hits, walks, and any runs with a LOT of strikeouts. Kerry Wood's game was about as good as it gets based on the formula for a guy that doesn't toss a no-hitter.

Did Bill James actually calculate some of the better performances that weren't no-hitters? I wonder if there's a Roger Clemens, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, or Bob Gibson complete game (but not a no-hitter) that scores around 100. Historically, they pitched complete games with a lot of strikeouts, few walks, and had low ERA's, and they all have a bunch of games with 15 or more strikeouts.

I looked at the box scores for some of the extraordinary complete game extra inning performances. The Harvey Haddix game...the 12 inning "perfect game" that he lost in the 13th. I came up with a 105. And Tom Cheney's 16 inning, 21 strikeout performance in 1962 garners a 115!

I know, I know...too much information! Sorry to be so long-winded and late to the party with this post...but I'm new to the board, and just getting up to speed on the topics of interest!

tony b.

You're 1000% right, of courso, Yo.

I've been a fan of his since the first Baseball Abstract of his that I read way back in 1984.

He's a statistician in the sense that his studies and conclusions are necessarily based on statistics, but that's where the comparison between him and a statistician, who does nothing more than keep track of stats, ends.

Get in our Fantasy Baseball game. There's a link on the first page of the thread. Any questions, just ask 'em there.