One
of the more interesting careers during the 1970’s, my next player for
the “Super Veteran’s-Then and Now” thread is former knuckle-baller
Wilbur Wood.
Check out the card first:
Four straight seasons of 300+ innings, including an incredible 376.2 in
1972 when he posted a 24-17 record with a 2.51 earned run average in 49
starts! INSANE!
He also threw eight shutouts and struck out 193 batters along with 20 complete games.
You have to remember that just two seasons before, in 1970, he led the
league in appearances with 77, ALL out of the bullpen, while posting 21
saves.
The man could do it all!
In 1968, while leading the league once again with 88 appearances and 46
finished games, he threw for 159 innings and posted a sparkling 1.87 ERA
along with a 13-12 record, and three years later
in 1971 he’d go on to post a sub-2.00 ERA as a starter, throwing seven
shutouts while posting a 22-13 record in his first year as a full-time
starter, a year that also started his incredible innings run.
It’s just amazing to think that someone threw all those innings in one
season during my lifetime in this day of pitch-counts and specialty
relievers.
By the time he retired after the 1978 season, Wood finished with a
164-156 record, appearing in 651 games, with 297 of them starts.
He’d have a final ERA of 3.24, with 24 career shutouts, 1411 strikeouts and 57 saves over 2684 innings pitched.
He led his league in pitching appearances three times, all consecutive,
then went on to lead the league in starts four years in a row soon
after.
Awesome!