A Custom for Johan
June 3rd, 2010 by slangon

There are many terms that are used in baseball that have their origins in one man. These terms generally take on the name of that man. The Mendoza Line. Getting Wally Pipped. Stengelese. Ruthville. Whenever one player or coach or manager becomes so associated with one event, or trait, or concept, the powers that be immortalize that player or coach or manager with their own term. I would like to propose one more.

Getting handed a Johan.

What is that you ask? Getting handed a Johan is when you pitch 7 or more innings while giving up 2 or less earned runs and end up with a no decision. Furthermore, getting handed a Johan with Cheese is when you pitch 7 or more with 2 or less runs and actually end up with a loss.

So far this season, Johan Santana has been handed a Johan 5 times, making him the N.L. Leader in that made-up category.

Luckily, so far, Johan has not been handed the Johan with Cheese.

Believe it or not I actually researched all this on Baseball-Reference.com. I took a look at all the National League pitchers who have made 5 or more starts this season. I chose 6 because I figured if you made less than 5 starts, there’s no way you could beat Johan in this category. Also, it cut down the number of pitchers I had to look at by a lot. Next I looked at their game logs for 2010 and tracked down how many no-decisions and losses they had where they pitched 7 or more innings while giving up 2 or less earned runs.

Although, Johan leads in getting handed a Johan, he is not alone. Apparently a ton of guys have been handed a Johan this year.

Johan Santana – 5
Rodrigo Lopez – 3
Jonathan Sanchez – 3
Brett Meyers – 3
Ian Kennedy – 2
Cole Hamels – 2
Roy Oswalt – 2
Brad Penny – 2
Adam Wainwright – 2
John Ely – 2
Felipe Paulino – 2
Livan Hernandez – 2
Barry Zito – 2
Josh Johnson – 2
Tim Hudson – 2
Paul Maholm – 2
Kyle Lohse – 2
Kyle Kendrick – 1
Aaron Cook – 1
Scott Olsen – 1
Tim Lincecum – 1
Chris Carpenter – 1
Randy Wolf – 1
Ross Ohlendorf – 1
Wade LeBlanc – 1
Jamie Garcia – 1
Matt Cain – 1
Clayton Kershaw – 1
Jon Garland – 1
Zach Duke – 1
Ryan Dempster – 1
Bronson Arroyo – 1
Dan Haren – 1
Ted Lilly – 1
Wandy Rodriguez – 1
Jamie Moyer – 1
Hiroki Kuroda – 1
Ubaldo Jimenez – 1
Roy Halladay – 1
Tom Gorzelanny – 1
Mike Leake – 1
John Lannan – 1
Homer Bailey – 1

So this post is dedicated to all those pitchers who go out and do their best only to be let down.

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