Tom Seaver vs. Dock Ellis

Dock Ellis

Last week, you may recall, upon the death of Tom Seaver, I posted a summary of the times that Pirates ace pitcher Steve Blass matched up on the mound against Mets ace Seaver. 

 http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2020/09/tom-seaver-vs-steve-blass.html 

You will see that I was surprised that such a matchup took place only six times over the years, and that there was a stretch of two entire seasons where the two didn't face each other at all.  So that got me to wondering: perhaps Seaver matched up more frequently with the Pirates other  ace pitcher of that era, Dock Ellis.  So off I went to www.baseball-almanac.com, run by the esteemed Sean Holtz, and I got my answer:

8/10/70 @ Pgh; Ny 10 - Pgh 2	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	2	5	5	3	3	1	L
Seaver	9	6	2	2	3	3	W
4/16/71 @ NY; NY 1 - Pgh 0	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	7	6	1	1	1	6	L
Seaver	9	3	0	0	0	14	W
4/15/72 @ NY; NY 4 - Pgh 0	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	6	6	4	4	2	2	L
Seaver	6	5	0	0	0	6	W
7/28/72 @Pgh; P 3 - NY 1	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	9	7	1	1	1	7	W
Seaver	7	4	2	2	4	8	L
7/28/74 @ NY; Pgh 8 - NY 3	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	8.1	6	3	3	1	6	W
Seaver	4.1	12	8	7	1	6	L
8/3/75 @ NY; P 5 - NY 4	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Ellis	6.1	7	4	3	3	4	ND
Seaver	10	9	4	3	4	5	ND
9/1/75 @ NY; Ny 3 - Pgh 0	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
Ellis	1	1	0	0	2	0	ND
Seaver	9	4	0	0	1	10	W

As it turns out, the two aces matched up against each other only six times as starters as well, and Ellis appeared in relief against Seaver once late in 1975, so that hardly counts.   And as it was with Blass, there was one entire season, 1973,  when the two did not face each other at all. 

Ellis did a little better against Seaver than teammate Blass did, posting a 2-3 record with two ND, and a 3.49 ERA.  In three of his starts, Pirates batters managed to get him 2, 0, and 0 runs in the way of support.  In those seven games, which includes the Ellis relief appearance, Seaver pitched four complete games and three shutouts.  His record was 4-2, 1 ND, and a 2.32 ERA.  He struck out 52 Pirates in 54.1 innings pitched.  If you take away the July 28, 1974 game, when Seaver gave up 7 earned runs in 4.1 IP, Seaver's ERA against Ellis and the Pirates was 1.26.

Not sure what this proves, other than that Tom Seaver was a great pitcher, even when facing against the opponents' best pitchers, but then, we already knew that.  

Anecdotally, as I was paging through Ellis-vs-Mets box scores, it seemed like Dock Ellis matched up against Jerry Koosman in EVERY Pirates-Mets series, but I didn't take notes, so that is a project for another day.  Ellis also pitched for a bunch of other teams over the years, including the Mets, but he never went up against Seaver in any of those other stops.

Oh, and I can't do a story about Dock Ellis without posting one of the more famous photos of him.