Ford was still maturing as a pitcher at this point; his
strikeout/walk ratio was almost even, whereas in a few years
it would be better than 3 to 1. I think he is the best choice of the
group; he led the AL in wins, and his winning percentage is the
best of the players above. He was second in both innings pitched
and ERA. He led his team to the pennant. He's not a clear choice,
but I think he's got the best argument.
Billy Pierce also had a remarkable season. For the past few
years, Pierce had been one of the better pitchers in the league,
but his team (the White Sox) stuck him with generally unimpressive
won-loss records. The trend continued this year; Pierce led the
league in ERA by a wide margin, but was only 15-10. A good argument
can be made that Pierce was the AL's best pitcher; his record is
only three games worse than Ford's, a difference that can be
attributed to pitching with the White Sox instead of the Yankees.
But Ford also pitched very well, and threw a lot more innings than
Pierce. I'll stick with Ford. Strangely, Pierce would not pitch as
well the next two seasons, but would post the best records of his
career.
Frank Sullivan was a workhorse who had five fine years in a
row for the Red Sox before he went into decline. This was his best
year; his ERA wasn't as good as some of the others, but Fenway Park
at this time was a terrible place to pitch. Early Wynn turned 35 this year, and was his usual
durable, reliable self.
Strikeout totals in the
AL had been unimpressive for several years; it was rare that any pitcher
averaged more than seven strikeouts a game. But now, two young hard throwers
had descended on the league. This was "Bullet" Bob
Turley's second season; he pitched for the Yankees, and was very
successful. Turley threw hard, and was very wild, but was tough to
hit. His strikeout numbers are very good, but they're not great;
they're really not all that different than Billy Pierce's.
Herb Score, on the other hand, had an incredibly dramatic
start to his career. Only a few pitchers — Dwight Gooden,
maybe Bob Feller, certainly Kerry Wood — have had such
awesome debuts. Score struck out 9.7 batters per nine innings,
by far the best rate in baseball. It was the first time in the history
of baseball that a regular starting pitcher struck out more than nine
batters per game.
I'll talk more about Herb Score next year. At this time, he
wasn't the best pitcher in the league- he was still a kid, and
walked too many batters. But he was almost ten years ahead of his time, and
his career sadly ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
