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Show Has Lowrest Earned Run Percentage ; Fred Toney and Jim Vaughn Have I Great Battle. Iu a :Tanin the National league pitcher of 1917 in order of their effectiveness effec-tiveness it was found expedient to divide di-vide tin' eighty-three pitchers into three groups. The first of these embraces all those vvio bore ihe brunt of the campaign cam-paign ajul pitched at least ten complete games; the second, those who participated partici-pated ii a minimum . of ten games, regardless! re-gardless! of the length of the games; and the third comprises alL. others who C look part in a championship contest. r Alexander won the title of leading V pitcher with an average of least runs earned per game of 1.85. Perritt of New Y-irk was a close second with 1.88, followed by Schupp with 1.05. The latter lat-ter led ail others in games won and lost with a jereentage of .750, this figure represen ing twenty-oue winning and seven Icing games. Five of the ten leading itchers were left-handers. The ptrcentage of games won and lost is given! with notation of the relative position of each pitcher, this special record biiug supplied in order that comparison com-parison iiay be mado with the official eanied-run rating. The value of rating pitchers on the latter syktem is again demonstrated. Basing the effectiveness of a pitcher solely on games won and lost, it would show thej champion New Yorks heading the list tvith three men Schupp, Sal-lee Sal-lee and Perritt and in addition two more of its pitchers among the first ten. Tie earned-run records, however, show in good measure the effectiveness of othe pitchers, regardless of where their respective clubs finished in the race. Schneider of (.'incin nati, for il-histratiui, il-histratiui, barely won more games than he lost; yet is rated fourth in the official offi-cial statding with an earned-run average aver-age of 1.97. As far as figures can tell, he suffered by reason of poor fielding support at critical stages of some of his 'games; for fifty-three of the 128 runs scored off him were made after chances had been) offered to retire the side. An opposite base was that of Meadows of St. Louis, rated eighth in games won and lost and twenty-sixth in the official all due to the fact that ninety-one of the ninev'-nine runs scored off nim during dur-ing the wason were earned. Phil Puglas of Chicago pitched in the greatest number of games fifty -nnc- follnwed by Barnes of Boston with fifty. exander scored most shutouts (eiyht), dnd he also led in complete games p (ched with thirty-five. Alexander Alex-ander let the righthanders in strike-, strike-, outs witi 201 out of the 1531 batsmen - facing Hin. Vaughn of Chicago led the lefthuiders with the higher percentage percen-tage of 195 strikeouts out of 1-10 chances. In 'onecutive victories, Sallec and SVhneidei tied with a run of nine games each, the former making his record from .line HO to August 1 (i, and the latter dining the winning streak of Cincinnati Cin-cinnati t'om Juno. 9 to duly 2i Two wtories in one afternoon were scored Jily 1 by Toney of Cincinnati against rittsburg; ou Sopt'mber 3 by Alexander of Philadebdiia against Brooklyn find on September IS by Doak of St. 'Luis, also against Brooklyn. The oitstanding pitching feature of the 1917 season if not of modern baseball base-ball histuy was the game played in Cliicago "av when Toney of Cinein-iaii Cinein-iaii and Vaughn of Chicas wont nine innings without allowing a safe hit to either sidv In the tenth Vaughn allowed al-lowed two' hits, losing the game 1 to 0. Tonev, luievor, continued unhi table t and score! the only no-hit game of the Nationals'! 1917 season. |