Sporcle Saturday: White Sox rookie first starts

Michael Kopech's first pitch (@RobHartWBBM)

You may have heard that this past Tuesday, the White Sox debuted their top pitching prospect, whose name starts with an “M” and ends in “ichael Kopech”. Terrible joke aside, the weather, unfortunately, gave us just a short taste of what is to come from the young right hander from Texas.

Michael Kopech‘s debut planted the seed for today’s Sporcle, though: how have other White Sox rookie pitchers fared in their debuts? To rank these, I decided to use game score as the metric, so to qualify a starter needed to record a game score of at least 50 (average-ish). That gives us 44 names in White Sox history, dating back to 1908. How many can you name? Good luck (you’re gonna need it)!

Quiz Parameters

  • I’ve given you 15 minutes to attempt to complete the list.
  • This list counts only those pitchers whose first career appearance was a start that came as a member of the White Sox organization. So if a pitcher made an appearance out of the bullpen, then started later, they won’t be on this list. Likewise, if they started a game for a different organization and came to the White Sox later, they also will not be on this list.
  • For hints I’ve provided the date of the game, and the game score the pitcher logged.

Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, or confound your friends and/or family

  • The White Sox are 26-18 in starting pitcher debuts with a game score of at least 50.
  • Two pitchers on this list have pitched a complete game shutout, one in 1909 (against the St. Louis Browns) and the other in 1928 (against the Philadelphia Athletics).
  • The worst game score for a rookie debut with the White Sox –and I remember this game, if not the pitcher– was a -7 on June 19, 2004 against the Expos, logged by Arnie Munoz. The Sox lost, 17-14.

Direct link here
All data from baseballreference.com


Take a second to support Sox Machine on Patreon
9 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
asinwreck

20/44, and I only got that with a bit of luck.

Spoiler
(Rube Peters
came up because I guessed
Spoiler
Gary Peters.)
Most proud of actually remembering the April 1982 pitcher, and I will always remember my anticipation of the 1990 game and what it meant for the future.

asinwreck

Oh this was fun, even if the rules disqualified

Spoiler
Wilson Alvarez’s magnificent first Sox start
.

KenWo4LiFe

13. This has to be my lowest percent of all time. Way to ruin my week, Ted. I remember being at the one on 9/2/91. One of the hottest tickets in town for another reason that day. But the starter stole the show. Went on to become a favorite of mine!  I was also at the 8/21/99 start. It was in tiger stadium. How does a guy that pitched 2 innings get a game score above 50 when he allowed four runners in those innings. A ridiculous stat.

KenWo4LiFe

It would not have changed my outcome. Had a tough time with this one. 

VAChisox

Only 12. Super Tough. Im disappointed that I couldn’t remember the 1978 guy—thought of everybody else of that era, but kept shooting blanks. The only other two that I should have gotten were the 1914 guy and the 2010 guy.

There’s not a lot of good on this list; here’s hoping that Kopech isn’t another

Spoiler
Gerry Janeski
.

12/44. I missed a lot of the recent guys.

Trooper Galactus

12/44. But I’ll only credit myself with 11/44 because I got 4/13/28 thinking of an entirely different pitcher who wasn’t even a starter.