This one is for you stat geeks. I have taken my All Fenway pitching staff and put together a few numbers of interest. First let’s recap, from most recent to back in the day: Jon Lester (L), Jonathan Papelbon (R), Pedro Martinez (R), Roger Clemens (R), Luis Tiant (R), Dick Radatz (R), Mel Parnell (L), Lefty Grove (L), Babe Ruth (L) and “Smokey” Joe Wood (R).

Jon Lester, a two-time all-star, a cancer survivor whose best years are yet to come.

Jonathan Papelbon the Red Sox all time save leader. 

Pedro 117-37 and astounding .760 winning percentage with the Red Sox. 

Roger Clemens twice struck out 20 batters in a nine inning game, its only been done four times in history and he did it pre juice! 

Luis Tiant, no Red Sox pitcher had more guile, more heart than El Tiante.

Dick Radatz was 40-21 (.656) with 78 saves in three successive years before an arm injury derailed his career.  

Mel Parnell authored a Fenway Park no-hitter versus the White Sox in 1956. 

Tom Yawkey included $125,000 in the trade that brought Lefty Grove to Boston in 1933. 

In 1916 Babe beat Walter Johnson four times surrendering two runs in 39 innings.

Had he not been injured the best pitcher of the year award might have been called the Smokey Joe Wood Award instead of the Cy Young Award. 

Now for a few fun stats and for purposes of remaining true to the All Fenway team, I included in these numbers only “Smokey” Joe Wood’s stats from 1912 on. So here goes.

The All Fenway pitching staff has a collective record of 966-518 (.651) with an ERA of 3.11 and 357 saves.  The starters combined for a total of 34 saves with Mel Parnell having 10 and Pedro eight.

“Smokey” Joe was 70-18 (.795) from 1912 through 1915 with an ERA of 1.70 and he completed 79% of his starts. Oh, and he threw in five saves.

They appeared in 2477 games and threw 646 complete games. In an interesting stat, the starters threw a complete game 36% of the time and the percentage of complete games is commensurate to the pitching eras. Ruth completed 73% of his starts, “Lefty” Grove threw a complete game in 63% his starts. Wood, Ruth and Grove completed 73% of their collective starts.

Entering into the era when closers became more and more relied upon the decline in complete games increases.  Tiant (47%) marks the transition era of the 1970s and by the time Clemens arrived in 1984 the closer was entrenched in baseball. His complete game percentage was 26% of his starts. Jon Lester has six complete games in his career for a total of 0.03% of his starts.

They faced 54,047 batters, walked 4,216 of them and hit 359 of them. They surrendered 11, 485 hits leaving opponents with a .232 average. They struck out 9,850 batters. Although Clemens is the all time Red Sox strikeout leader with 2,590 Pedro is the All Fenway strikeout king averaging 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. Clemens struck out one of every 4.3 batters he faced, Pedro, had one in every 3.2 batters go down on strikes. In an interesting look at, shall we say the “intimidation” factor, Clemens hit one of every 132 batters he faced, Pedro plunked one of every 71 batters! As for control, again it’s Pedro, he walked one batter for every 17.7 he faced, Clemens gave a pass to every 13.2 batters.

The All Fenway pitching staff has collectively led the league in the following categories: Wins-5 times, Winning percentage-7 times, ERA-14 times, Shutouts-10 times, Strikeouts-3 times,  Complete games-5 times, Starts-twice and Innings pitched-twice. They have made 20 all-star appearances, won 5 CY Young Awards and one MVP.

Oh, and one more thing…..

The GREATEST pitcher in the history of the Red Sox and Fenway Park!

And so it is on this day in Fenway Park history, February 28, 2012.