Randy Wells has made five starts, never giving up more than three runs and lasting at least five innings each time out. Yet, he has not earned a single win. That tells you something about the utility of Wins as a pitching stat.

Anyone else go through such a streak? Yep, as a matter of fact, even another Cub.

I used Baseball Reference’s Play Index tool to find streaks that are similar to Wells’:

Longest Streak with W=0, ER<=3 From 1954 to 2009, Playing for CHC, as Starter, To start the season

You can find the report here, but what I’m using is whittled down with these additional criteria:

• Minimum 5 IP per start
• Starts must be consecutive without relief appearances in between or before the streak

One other Cubs pitcher had such a streak, back in September of 1988, shortly after the lights were turned on at Wrigley Field.

If you view the full report, you can see lots of other pitchers who passed the initial filters. I stopped checking after streaks of four to find qualifiers based on the second filter.

Harkey would go on to finish 5th in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1990. His strong, but winless, September call-up turned into 27 starts and 12 wins in his official rookie campaign.

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