Diamondbacks pitching prospect Max Scherzer made his major league debut last night, relieving in the third inning of Arizona's 6-4 loss to the Astros. He retired all 13 batters to face him, seven by strikeout.

Going back to 1956, Scherzer's debut outing is the longest without allowing a baserunner. Here is the list of those retiring at least seven batters:

2007 AL Cy Young award winner C.C. Sabathia has begun 2008 with four horrendous starts, yielding 46 baserunners (32 hits including 5 homers, plus 14 walks) in only 18 innings. He managed to escape with a no decision in his first outing, but got pegged with the loss in each of the last three. He now stands at 0-3, 13.50 ERA ... in his free agent walk year.

Sabathia got knocked around for nine earned runs for the 2nd consecutive start on Wednesday, losing 13-2 to the Tigers.

Since 1956, there have been only six instances of a pitcher giving up at least nine earned runs in consecutive starts (and Sabathia is of course the only one following up on a Cy Young award from the prior year):

Of course, one must give some credit (or blame?) to Eric Wedge for allowing Sabathia to stay in there long enough in each of those games to cough up nine earned runs.

Much has been already written about the Tigers awful start. How no team starting 0-7 has made the playoffs and the like.

But let's look at the larger picture. Just about ANY team can have a 7-game losing streak at ANY point in the season. The Tigers added a starting pitcher and all-star third baseman to, and lost a couple of relievers from, the 88-win team of 2007. Its not like they turned into the '62 Mets.

I took a look at every non-strike, non-lockout season since the 162-game schedule was implemented in 1961. There were 337 instances in which a team had a 7-game losing streak at SOME point in the season.

Yes, the '62 Mets made the list, as well as the '03 Tigers. But there were four teams that still played .600 ball for the year:

TEAM / YR	W	L	PCT
OAK 2001	102	60	.630
CHW 2005	99	63	.611
BAL 1983	98	64	.605
BOS 1977	97	64	.602

Another 26 teams won at least 90 games and 81 more played at least .500 ball.

[But the composite won-loss record of those 337 teams was 75-87 (.464). So maybe the Tigers ARE in a bit of trouble, from a historical perspective.]

Chase Utley, who led the majors in being hit by pitches last year (25) despite missing a month .... as a result of one of those HBPs, has tied a Major League record this afternoon.

Utley got plunked, to paraphrase Monty Burns in the "Homer at the Bat" episode, "not once, not twice, but thrice" by the Mets in the Phils 5-2 win.

Here are the prior instances of a batter being hit three times in the same game (from 1956 to present).

Reds phenom Johnny Cueto lived up to the hype in his first major league start this past Thursday, tossing 7 innings of 1-hit ball.

Using Bill James' "Game Score" calculation:

Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (or 3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.

We find that Cueto's 1-hit, no walk, 10 K, 1 ER performance translates to a game score of 81.

Here are the best game scores in a pitcher's debut (since 1956), for pitchers going seven innings or less (you'll note the lack of quality in the careers of these hurlers)

If we don't limit the starts to 7 innings or less, here are the top game scores (again, note the lack of career success for most of these pitchers):

Some go bananas.
Some need to go bananas.
Life balances out.