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The Brewers Against Starters Making Their Major League Debut

Anthony Swarzak is scheduled to start for the Twins tonight. Haven't heard of him? That could be because he's never pitched in the majors before. Since joining the National League in 1998, the Brewers have faced eighteen starting pitchers making their major league debut. It's been done before, it never hurts to look again at a rundown of how they did:

Player Date Tm Opp W/L Score IP H R ER BB SO HR GmSc
Brian Meadows 4/4/1998 FLA MIL L 2-6 3.2 10 6 6 2 3 0 18
Dan Reichert 7/16/1999 KCR @MIL W 12-10 1.2 5 7 7 4 1 0 14
Buddy Carlyle 8/29/1999 SDP MIL W 5-4 7 2 4 1 2 5 1 66
Brian O'Connor 5/13/2000 PIT MIL W 11-8 2 7 6 6 2 0 1 16
Adam Eaton 5/30/2000 SDP MIL W 6-3 5.1 5 3 3 2 4 1 48
Jose Acevedo 6/19/2001 CIN MIL L 8-10 4 4 6 6 2 4 3 32
Carlos Zambrano 8/20/2001 CHC MIL L 2-10 4 4 7 7 4 3 1 25
Juan Cruz 8/21/2001 CHC MIL L 1-3 6 3 2 2 1 8 0 65
Josh Pearce 4/20/2002 STL @MIL L 3-5 4.2 6 3 3 3 0 0 37
Nate Teut 5/4/2002 FLA @MIL L 4-6 4.1 8 5 5 1 3 0 29
Kirk Saarloos 6/18/2002 HOU @MIL L 1-7 4.2 6 6 6 3 4 1 29
Chin-hui Tsao 7/25/2003 COL MIL W 7-3 6.1 8 3 3 1 5 2 49
Zach Duke 7/2/2005 PIT @MIL L 3-5 7 5 3 3 1 9 1 63
Anthony Reyes 8/9/2005 STL @MIL W 5-2 6.1 2 2 2 1 5 1 65
Paul Maholm 8/30/2005 PIT @MIL W 6-0 8 4 0 0 3 5 0 76
Boof Bonser 5/21/2006 MIN @MIL L 3-5 6 5 1 1 3 8 0 63
Rick VandenHurk 4/10/2007 FLA MIL L 2-3 4.2 5 1 1 3 5 0 52
Jonathon Niese 9/2/2008 NYM @MIL W 6-5 3 7 5 5 4 2 1 23
All Players 1998-2008 MLB MIL 8-10 87-95 88.2 96 70 67 42 74 13 43

 

The won-loss marks and scores are from the perspective of the pitcher's team, so the Brewers have actually gone 10-8 in games started by opposing pitchers making their major league debut. "GmSc" stands for game score, a fun little number that tries to rate the effectiveness of a pitcher's start without getting too complex. The pitcher list contains some eminently forgettable names and some guys who still give the Brewers fits, but taken together, they didn't do well in their first starts:

Here are the rate stats for their 88 2/3 combined innings: 9.74 H/9, 7.11 RA, 6.80 ERA, 4.26 BB/9, 7.51 K/9, 1.32 HR/9

For quick and dirty comparisons' sake, the Brewers have turned starters making their major league debuts into Chan Ho Park with a few more homers. Hopefully they make Swarzak's stats look like Park's 2009 numbers.