Old Time Family Baseball

It’s a big day for retirement as Mike Maroth, the last Major Leaguer to lose 20 games in a season, announced his retirement hours after Rocco Baldelli did. Maroth, who went 9-21 with a 5.73 ERA for that atrociously bad 2003 Tigers team, managed to assemble a career record of 50-67 despite never being more than a back of the rotation option. 

Craig Calcaterra, as he usually does, put it best: 

“…it takes a hell of a pitcher to lose a lot of games.  Mike Maroth was like that. He was the last pitcher to lose 20 games in a season when he lost 21 for the 2003 Tigers.  Yes, I know that the Tigers roster was way thin that year and someone had to pitch, but Maroth was good enough, healthy enough, and professional enough that Alan Trammell felt OK sending him out there day after day after day, where he eventually locked up loss number 21.

I wouldn’t normally make a point to post about a guy like Mike Maroth retiring, but baseball isn’t just about excellence. It’s about persistence too, and it’s about character. Mike Maroth showed both of those things in 2003. And after that dubious notoriety, he managed to put together a couple of good seasons, including one for a pennant winner in 2006. He was left off the postseason roster that year.”

Maroth tried to come back from an endless array of surgeries, even pitching in the Puerto Rican Winter League this offseason, but finally decided his body had enough. And while he’ll always be a quirky trivia answer until the next player is unlucky enough to lose twenty games, only 1,128 pitchers finished their Major League careers with more than 50 victories. When that’s out of a possible 7,586 pitchers who have come through the Major Leagues, that’s quite an accomplishment.