win some, lose some

Greg Maddux moved into the 200 career loss club last night, but he is still second in career losses among pitchers who hit Craig Biggio with a pitch, 36 losses behind Frank Tanana's 236. Here's the top ten in losses among those who have plunked Biggio:
Frank Tanana - 236
Greg Maddux - 200
Danny Darwin - 182
Tom Candiotti - 164
Orel Hershiser - 150
Kevin Brown - 144
David Wells - 144
Andy Benes - 139
John Smoltz - 133
Al Leiter - 132
The difficult question is who might be the next pitcher to break into the 200 loss club/1 Biggio plunk club. Tom Glavine has 187 losses, the 2nd highest among active pitchers, but he has never plunked Biggio. Of the 10 players above, only 2 other than Maddux are active, and both are far to old to hang on long enough to get to 200. The youngest pitcher who has hit Biggio and lost 100 games is currently Livan Hernandez, who claims to be 31, and the most losses by a pitcher under 30 who has plunked Biggio is 73 by Kip Wells who is 29, but it's hard to say right now whether either of them is good enough to lose 200 games. Prior to this season, the 42 players in the 200 loss club had won an average of 285 games each, had an average carer win pct of .544 and a total combine win pct of .549, and an average of 2,300 strikeouts.

Frank Tanana was charged with his 223rd loss in the game he plunked Biggio. He is the only pitcher to plunk Biggio after already having 200 losses, and only Danny Darwin has done it after 150 career losses. Darwin had 154 losses when he plunked Biggio, but didn't get the loss that day. Other than Tanana, only 2 pitchers have been charged with a career loss greater than 100 in the game in which they plunked Biggio. Kevin Brown lost his 130th game on September 3, 2003 while hitting Biggio in the 2nd inning. Danny Jackson also plunked Biggio in the 2nd inning in his 117th career loss. In total, 12 pitchers have plunked Biggio 17 times after losing 100 career games, led by Orel Hershiser who did it 3 times, and is the only one in this group to plunk Biggio twice in a game.

Paul Wilson, Chan Ho Park, and Wayne Gomes all received their first career loss the day they plunked Craig Biggio.