The 2022 season was an up-and-down one for the Red Raider bullpen. There were some notable struggles, to be sure. On March 12 at Rice, after Tech starter Brandon Birdsell pitched six innings of scoreless, no-hit ball, his successors allowed the Owls to tie the game 2-2. On March 26, the bullpen gave up eight runs to Texas in a back-and-forth slugfest, best known for Kurt Wilson’s walk-off grand slam to save the day for Texas Tech. And on April 19 at New Mexico, Tech relievers allowed all 11 Lobo runs, including a three-run walk-off shot. Yet, this very same bullpen crew gave up only two runs total during its 19 innings of NCAA regional work.
So, looking at the season as a whole – not just the most memorable successes and failures – how did the Tech bullpen do? The conventional metric of reliever success is, of course, the save. However, as detailed below, the save statistic has many limitations, so we will instead look at the “goose egg,” developed by Nate Silver at Five-Thirty-Eight.
The meaning of “goose egg” is two-fold. First, it honors the legendary Rich (Goose) Gossage, an intimidating MLB reliever from 1972-1994, who regularly turned in multi-inning stints from the pen. Excluding his one year as a starter in 1976, Gossage threw nearly 1,600 total innings in 965 relief appearances. Second, goose egg is slang for zero, which is the number of runs a team wants its relievers to allow.
A save is awarded to a relief pitcher who finishes off the opposing team and meets other criteria. One limitation of the save is that only one can be awarded in a game, with no regard to whether a pitcher threw one, two, or more innings in closing out the game. In MLB, notes Silver, “The typical modern closer is really just a ninth-inning specialist,” leading to a huge number of one-inning saves. In contrast, by Silver’s definition of a goose egg, one can be awarded (pending certain criteria) for each inning pitched in the seventh inning or later. Hence, the same pitcher can receive more than one goose egg in a single game if he goes multiple innings in relief.
Another problem is that a reliever can allow runs and still receive a save. Silver gives the example of someone who enters with his team leading by three runs, gives up two, and still receives a save. A goose egg, in contrast, requires that absolutely no runners cross home plate while the pitcher is on the mound (regardless of whether the run would be charged to a previous pitcher under official scoring).
Based on Silver’s above-linked article, I would say there are six major principles governing the earning of goose eggs. I illustrate these in the following graphic:
Two of the principles – goose eggs being available only from the seventh inning on and in a tie game or when protecting a vulnerable lead – ensure that they reflect performance in clutch situations. Throwing a scoreless inning to keep the game close when one’s team trails by one run is a valuable contribution but it is not within the definition of a goose egg.
I had been unsure whether a runner being caught stealing counted toward the necessary number of outs for a goose egg (given the catcher’s large role), so I tweeted to Evan Thompson, who tracks MLB goose eggs for the website Last Word on Sports. He assured me that such outs do count.
Now that we’re clear on the definition, we can ask which Red Raider relievers led the team in goose eggs. I’m sure that, with the proper skills, researchers can develop programs to “scrape” data from play-by-play sheets and automate the determination of goose eggs. I lack such skills, however, so I had to read play-by-play sheets and figure out for myself if a pitcher warranted a goose egg in an inning. Though I’m confident in my determinations, it’s possible that I’ve erred somewhere either in awarding or failing to award a goose egg.
I counted 24 total Texas Tech goose eggs in 2022 (including five occurring during the NCAA regional alone). Twenty-four may not seem like a lot for a team that played 61 games (with three or more goose eggs available in a game). However, 20 of the Raiders’ 39 wins were by five runs or more (including nine wins by 10 runs or more), so goose-egg opportunities when leading were unavailable in a lot of games. They are also unavailable when one’s team is losing and Tech lost 22 games on the season.
Here are each Tech relief pitcher’s 2022 goose eggs (from most to least):
Austin Becker (5)
All five of Becker’s goose eggs came late in the season. He recorded two goose eggs in one game (vs. Georgia Southern in the regional) and one goose egg in each of three other games. Against Georgia Southern, Becker pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings with the Raiders leading 3-1. Another egg came against Kansas State in the teams’ second matchup of the Big 12 tournament. In the top of the eighth inning, protecting a 5-4 Tech advantage, Becker inherited two runners, but got a strike-out and pop-out to end the inning with the lead intact.
As noted in the egg diagram, a reliever qualifies for a goose egg if, in addition to allowing no runs, he experiences a situation in which the number of runners inherited (two in this case) and the number of outs recorded (also two) add up to at least three. Becker’s other two goose eggs came in the ninth inning of the first K-State game of the conference tournament (three up, three down, with a 5-3 Tech lead) and in the ninth inning of the Oklahoma State series finale in Stillwater. The latter goose egg was not pretty, as he successfully protected a 6-4 lead with a sequence of single, K, HBP, fly-out, walk, and K.
Trendan Parish (4)
Parish’s goose eggs, in contrast, occurred entirely in the early part of the season. In Tech’s home opener, Parish pitched the eighth against Dallas Baptist, protecting a 5-4 Raider lead with a three-up, three-down inning. A week later, he returned against DBU (this time on the Patriots’ field), retiring all three batters he faced in the tenth inning, to cement a 4-3 victory. He also threw a scoreless ninth to preserve a 7-5 win over Kent State in the finale of the team’s three-game series and closed out a scoreless ninth (grounder, single, K, K) of the middle game of the Rice series, as Tech prevailed 3-2.
Derek Bridges (3)
Bridges’ biggest goose egg of his three came in the NCAA regional, as he helped Tech avoid elimination against UNC-Greensboro. He pitched in the ninth inning of a 2-0 Tech victory, inheriting one runner and then going fly-out, single, and K. His other goose eggs came in the seventh inning of the second K-State conference tournament game, and way back in the game at Dallas Baptist (eighth inning, preserving a 3-3 tie).
Andrew Devine (3)
Devine’s three goose eggs all came late in the season. He pitched a scoreless eighth (three up, three down) in the Red Raiders’ 2-0 NCAA tournament win over UNCG; and a scoreless tenth, preserving a 5-5 tie vs. K-State in the teams’ second conference tournament game. Then, in the Oklahoma State series opener, after inheriting two runners with a 7-6 lead and two out in the bottom of the ninth– a pretty tense situation – he was there for the final out as a Cowboy runner was retired trying to score from third on a pitch in the dirt (two inherited runners plus one recorded out add up to three, the necessary quantity for a goose egg).
Josh Sanders (2)
Sanders was the other Red Raider reliever to amass two goose eggs in the same game and those were all he recorded for the season. In the opener of the Texas series, Sanders pitched scoreless ninth and tenth innings, preserving a 4-4 tie until Kurt Wilson’s steal of home in the bottom of the tenth.
The remainder of the Raider goose eggs were recorded by Mason Molina (2, including the ninth inning of the Georgia Southern NCAA tournament game), Jace Lopez (2), Shay Hartis (1), Brendan Girton (1), and Bo Blessie (1). While Becker accounted for almost 21% of Texas Tech’s goose eggs in 2022, every other pitcher on this list returns to the Red Raiders in 2023. While some, like Molina and Girton, will most likely assume full-time roles in the starting rotation, this level of clutch production should bode very well for Tech’s chances to win close games.
(Keith Patrick wrote about who has left the program in Looking Ahead to 2023: Part 1, and Part 2 looking at returners will be out soon!)
Silver also has a statistic that is analogous to a blown save, known as a “broken egg.” Broken eggs are a little harder to calculate than goose eggs, but I tried to approximate broken eggs by counting up Texas Tech relief appearances in which the pitcher (a) was protecting a one- or two-run lead, or the score was tied; (b) in the seventh inning or later; and (c) allowed one or more runs. I counted 14 instances of failing to close out potential goose-egg situations.
Amazingly, five of these failed goose-egg opportunities – more than one-third of the Red Raiders’ seasonal total – occurred in just the first two games of the Texas series. In the Friday opener with the Longhorns, Colin Clark allowed a run in the top of the seventh with Tech leading 3-1 and Parish allowed two solo homers in the top of the eight with Tech up 3-2. The next day, Hartis allowed UT to tie the game 7-7 in the top of the seventh, Brandon Beckel started the eighth in a 7-7 tie and gave up four runs, and then Bridges allowed a run in the top of the tenth, giving the Longhorns a (short-lived) 12-11 lead.
Becker, who led the Red Raiders with five goose eggs, failed only once in a goose-egg situation. In the second Kansas State game of the Big 12 tournament, he allowed the tying run (making it 5-5) in the top of the ninth.
Tech missed only one goose-egg opportunity in the NCAA regionals, but it was a big one. In the opener vs. Notre Dame, a wild pitch by Molina in the bottom of the eighth gave the Irish a 3-2 lead and that ended up being the final score. Other missed goose eggs by Tech included: three by Bridges (second game at Rice, second game vs. Texas, and opener at Oklahoma State); three by Beckel (second Texas game, opener at OSU, and second K-State game of the Big 12 tournament); two by Girton (home game vs. DBU and the second game at Rice); two by Clark (opening games of the series vs. UT and at TCU); and one each by Parish (UT opener) and Hartis (UT Game 2).
In conclusion, the goose egg is one metric, among others, for evaluating relief pitching. I think it is a good one. Although the earning of multiple goose eggs in a single game was rare for Tech relievers in 2022, two pitchers earned this distinction. More could be done to take into account the situation a reliever inherits as, for example, coming in with a runner on third and no outs makes a goose egg difficult. However, there is something to be said about keeping statistics as simple as possible. After all, if you’re at the Law, it’s the seventh inning or later, Tech is tied or leads by one or two, and a Raider reliever throws a shutout inning, you can proudly say, “That’s a goose egg!”
Alan Reifman is a Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at Texas Tech University
