Three weeks ago we came up with the best playoff hitters at each position since the advent of baseball’s wild card in 1995. Today we bring you the five-man rotation of the postseason’s best starting pitchers, as well as the best closer, of the same era.
Naturally, cutting this list down to just five starters proved to be extremely difficult. Among some of the playoff greats that just missed the cut include Orlando Hernandez, Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Tim Lincecum.
Onto the list:
Starting Pitcher 5—Orel Hershiser: Nicknamed “Bulldog” by his manager Tommy Lasorda, Hershiser pitched both before and after the wild card era started—and was extremely successful in both eras.
Hershiser blitzed the favored A’s in the 1988 World Series with a pair of complete game victories as the Dodgers took the series. Seven years later he finally returned to the playoffs as a 37-year-old with Cleveland and was still clutch going 4–1 with a 1.52 ERA in five starts.
Overall, Hershiser owns an 8–3 playoff record with a 2.59 ERA in 22 postseason games (18 starts) including a pair of shutouts.
Starting Pitcher 4—Josh Beckett: Beckett makes the top five here on the strength of two great postseason performances that resulted in World Series titles for his teams.
In 2003, a 23-year-old Beckett came of age for the Marlins, posting a 2–2 record with a 2.11 ERA over six games (five starts) including the World Series clincher—an incredible complete game shutout of the Yankees in Game 6 at Yankee Stadium that sealed the title for Florida.
Four years later Beckett was the difference for Boston. The right-hander won all four of his playoff starts, while posting a microscopic 1.20 ERA, as the Red Sox won its second World Series in four years.
Through 2007, Beckett’s career postseason stats would put him at the top of this list (6–2 with a 1.73 ERA over 10 games) but he came back to earth a bit in 2008 and 2009. Still he boasts a 7–3 postseason record with a 3.07 ERA and his 3 postseason shutouts are the second-most of all time.
Starting Pitcher 3—John Smoltz: Smoltz has one of the more interesting postseason resumes around. For a number of years he played, not second, but third fiddle to Maddux and Glavine in the regular season, but was the team’s ace come playoff time—and the Braves were almost always in the playoffs during his years.
Maybe the most famous of his starts was way back in 1991 when he and Minnesota’s Jack Morris matched zeros, in Game 7 of the World Series, inning after inning before Smoltz was taken out in the eighth. The Braves eventually lost in 10, 1-0.
From 1991–99 Smoltz complied a postseason record of 12–4 with a 2.77 ERA across 28 games—26 of them as a starter. Then injuries forced Smoltz to reinvent himself as the team’s closer from 2001–2004, in which time he pitched in 11 playoff games, compiling 3 saves and a 1.96 ERA.
Remarkably, Smoltz returned to his dominant starter status in 2005 (as a 38-year-old) and won his final playoff start with the Braves that fall. Overall Smoltz boasts a 15–4 career postseason record with a 2.67 ERA and 4 saves.
Starting Pitcher 2—Andy Pettitte: The only pitcher with more postseason wins than Smoltz is Pettitte, who has an incredible 19 of them, against 8 losses, while putting up a 3.81 ERA. He’s also the leader in innings pitched (276 and two-thirds) and games started (44.)
Not surprisingly, Pettitte was at his best when the Yankees were at their apex from 1998–2000, winning three straight World Series titles. During that run, the left-handed Pettitte went 6–1 with a 3.26 ERA in 11 starts. The Yankees won 10 of those 11 starts.
His run was interrupted by an appearance in Houston before resuming with the Yankees to win the World Series again in 2009. During that run Pettitte went 4–1 in five starts with an ERA of 3.52.
Starting Pitcher 1—Curt Schilling: Although Schilling doesn’t have as many wins as Smoltz or Pettitte his 11-2 career postseason record, to go along with a 2.23 ERA, speaks for itself.
Schilling’s most famous postseason accomplishment may be the bloody-sock game where he came back early from surgery and powered the Red Sox to a crucial Game 6 win in the ALCS at Yankee Stadium, allowing just one run in seven innings.
As great as that performance was though, his heroics in 2001 might have been even better. Schilling went 4–0 in six starts (including three against the Yankees in the World Series) with a 1.12 ERA and three complete games as the Diamondbacks took home the trophy.
Even as a 40-year-old for Boston in 2007, Schilling won three of his four starts, while posting a 2.23 ERA, in helping the Red Sox further erase the curse. He is the ultimate postseason ace.
Closer—Mariano Rivera: As great as Schilling has been starting games, Rivera is even better at finishing them—and he’s not even close to his nearest competitor.
Rivera holds the record for lowest postseason ERA (starter or reliever) at 0.70 and his 42 playoff saves are more than twice his nearest competitor. He’s the reason Andy Pettitte has zero complete games among his 44 postseason starts, because why leave him in when Rivera is so automatic?
During the Yankees’ title runs in 1998 and 1999 Rivera saved 12 games and didn’t allow a single run in any of the six postseason series—a period of 25 and two-thirds scoreless innings pitched.
Overall, Rivera allowed just 11 earned runs in 141 postseason pressure-filled innings, while compiling a record of 8–1.
