Late Bloomers: Ron Guidry

Ron Guidry was on quite a heater coming into the game of June 17, 1978.

He’d started 13 games so far that season, and hadn’t lost any of them. In fact, other than Opening Day, when he left after seven innings with the score tied at one, only to see Richie Zisk hit a walk-off homer against Goose Gossage in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees had won every game he started. Guidry’s record was 10-0. His ERA was 1.57. He’d thrown complete games in four of his last five starts and had struck out 49 hitters in the 44.1 innings in those games. His last start had been a three-hit shutout against the A’s in which he whiffed 11. He was leading the league in wins and ERA and only the great Nolan Ryan had more strikeouts.

It was fitting, then, that Ryan’s California Angels were his next opponent. The Angels arrived in New York in second place, and promptly beat the Yankees in the series opener by hammering Jim Beattie and Andy Messersmith for ten runs. They had one of the best offenses in the league led by Don Baylor, who had ripped a home run off Messersmith in the opener to give him 16 for the season, second-most in the league. The right-handed Baylor, along with Bobby Grich, Joe Rudi, and Brian Downing, were a formidable bating order for a lefty like Guidry to deal with.

But they proved no match for the wiry Cajun, who toyed with them the entire evening.