Most pitchers would kill to have the career of Mike Torrez. He spent 18 years in the major leagues and won 185 games. He was a 20-game winner for the Orioles in 1975 and was a star in the World Series two years later, when he won two games for the Yankees against the Dodgers, with 15 Ks in 18 IP.
Ordinarily, winning two complete games in the World Series, including the series-clincher, would be enough to get a guy MVP honors. But Torrez turned this feat in the year that Reggie Jackson decided to hit 5 HR in 20 ABs and post a 1.792 OPS.
So, instead of being remembered as the star of the 1977 World Series, Torrez’ career is defined by two events that happened later in his career, neither of them good.
The following season, Torrez jumped to the Boston Red Sox, where he did what he seemingly always did – pitched a lot of innings and won a lot of games. Torrez won 16 games that year and pitched 250 innings. But the only thing that fans remember from that year is that he gave up the pop fly HR to Bucky Dent in the game against the Yankees to decide the AL East.
Six years later, Torrez again made headlines for the wrong reasons. He was on the mound and delivered the pitch that hit Dickie Thon in the eye, an injury that derailed what looked like a potential Hall of Fame career.
By that time, Torrez was on the Mets, his seventh team in the majors. He joined the club a year earlier, in a trade with the Red Sox where the Mets gave up minor league utility player Mike Davis. In 1983, Torrez led the National League in losses (17), ER (108) and BB (113).
But the funny thing about that year is that Torrez seemed to pitch better later in the year when he gave up more walks than he did at the beginning. Torrez allowed 37 BB in his first 84.1 IP, which works out to 3.95 BB/9. He was 2-8 in that stretch, with a 4.48 ERA.
In his final 22 games, Torrez allowed 76 BB in 138 IP for a 4.96 BB/9. Yet somehow he went 8-9 with a 4.30 ERA in that period. Seven of his eight wins were Quality Starts, including July 26th, when he allowed 1 ER in 10 IP. His following outing he went 11 IP, did not allow a run but ended up with a no-decision.
Perhaps the most remarkable outing came the start before his back-to-back extra-inning games. On July 21st, Torrez broke the team record for most walks in a game. While a reasonable guess would be that this mark came from the expansion-era Mets, it was actually held by two pitchers in the 1970s. Nolan Ryan set the team mark when he issued 9 BB in 5 IP against the Cardinals in 1971. That mark was tied three years later by Harry Parker, who allowed 9 BB in 8 IP against the Padres.
Torrez allowed 10 BB in 3.1 IP against the Reds. He walked the bases loaded in the first inning but escaped without allowing any runs. After the Mets gave him a 1-0 lead in the top of the second, Torrez issued two more walks in the bottom of the inning but again escaped unscathed.
The third inning was not so kind. Again, Torrez loaded the bases, this time on a double and two walks. He ended up giving up three runs in the inning, which also included two more walks, both of them intentional. After three innings Torrez had already tied the Mets’ all-time record with nine walks.
In the fourth inning, he allowed a one-out walk, and was removed from the game one batter later, after he allowed a two-run homer. Torrez’ final line in the game was:
3.1 IP, 3 H, 5 ER, 10 BB, 1 K and the loss
The Mets won just 68 games in 1983 and Torrez tied for second on the staff with 10 Wins. Yet he also tied another dubious team record that year. Never considered one of the better-hitting pitchers around, whatever skills Torrez’ may have had at one point had atrophied from his years pitching in the AL with the designated hitter.
In his first year with regular ABs since 1974, Torrez posted an .046/.061/.046 line. That was a .107 OPS and a -70 OPS+, which tied Jerry Koosman’s 1969 mark as the worst OPS+ for any Mets player with at least 50 PA in a season. While Torrez still holds the record for most walks in one game by a Met, he and Koosman were left in the dust by Al Leiter in 2003, who put up a .019/.055/.019 line for a .073 OPS and a -79 OPS+.
Torrez lasted just nine games with the Mets in 1984, where he was 1-5 with a 5.02 ERA before he was released. His final Mets numbers were 11-22 with a 4.47 ERA in 48 games covering 260 IP.