Inside the stats of Eric Rasmussen’s baseball career

In all my years of doing sports stats articles, columns and blogs, I have written about some of my fellow Racine, WI natives who went on to play professional sports. I have done stat pieces on Shane Rawley, Duane Kuiper, Caron Butler and Jim Chones, to name a few.

I recently realized that I have never written a sports stats piece on another Racine, WI athlete: baseball player Eric Rasmussen. He and I attended the same junior college (he was there a couple years before I got there) and played for the same JC coach, Pat Daugherty, as did Shane and Duane. Eric, a right-handed pitcher, had an eight-year Major League Baseball career from 1975-83. He had a 50-77 record with five career saves and a 3.85 ERA.

In doing research on Eric’s career, I discovered some really interesting numbers. And it’s not a stretch to say that he pitched in a different era of baseball, and that he was certainly the last of a breed that no longer exists in baseball. Here’s a few stats on “Ras’s” career that you might find interesting:

• Eric in one of only 58 pitchers in MLB history that ended their careers with 10 or more shutouts in less than 150 starts. In fact, Eric is the last pitcher to retire with less than 150 starts and 10 or more shutouts. He had 12 shutouts in his career and 144 pitching starts. Only five pitchers since 1970 retired from the game with 10 or more shutouts and less than 150 starts. In addition to Eric, there was Jim Bouton (11 shutouts, 144 starts), Steve Arlin (11 shutouts, 123 starts), Tom Phoebus (11 shutouts, 149 starts) and Joe Sparma (10 shutouts, 142 starts).
• Eric is one of 496 pitchers in MLB history to have 12 or more shutouts in his career. Complete games and shutouts are much more of a rarity in today’s game. Consider this: Since 2000, only 15 pitchers have amassed 10 or more shutouts and all 15 started 200 or more games. The pitchers with the most shutouts since 2000: Roy Halladay, 19, Clayton Kershaw, 15 and Tim Hudson, 13.
• Eric is one of 411 pitchers who had 10 or more shutouts in his career and five or more career saves.
• In 1979, Eric had three shutouts and three saves on his end-of-the-year stat line. Since 1901, 285 pitchers have had three or more shutouts and three or more saves in the same season. The last time it happened, however, was 37 years ago. In 1983, Neal Heaton had seven saves and three shutouts, and Bryn Smith had three shutouts and three saves that same season.
• Eric pitched a shutout in his MLB debut on July 21, 1975. Since 1905, there have been 69 pitchers who tossed a complete game shutout in their debut start in the majors. The last pitcher to do this was Andy Van Hekken for the Detroit Tigers on September 3, 2002.
• Eric’s Wikipedia page states that he is the only pitcher in MLB history to pitch a shutout in both his American League and National League debuts. As noted above, he pitched a shutout in 1975 in his MLB debut with the St. Louis Cardinals against the San Diego Padres and then in his American League debut with the Kansas City Royals in 1983, Eric pitched a shutout.
• He is one of 30 MLB pitchers born on March 22. Of those 30, he is tied for fifth for most career wins with 50.
• He is one of 122 MLB pitchers born in Wisconsin. His 50 career wins is 18^th most of the 122.

Some pretty interesting stuff!

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