Mick Abel tied a 78-year-old
Phillies record when he struck out nine Pirates
in his first major league start . He threw 84 pitches in six innings and did not walk anyone. It was a terrific debut for Abel, 23, the club’s first-round pick in 2020. We cracked open the vaults and dusted off the electronic history books to take a look at the best debuts by Phillies starting pitchers in club history. Let’s count ‘em down starting with No. 10.
10. Curt Simmons
Debut: Simmons struck out nine Giants, setting the team record for a debut which Abel tied on Sunday. He walked six, and four of the five hits he surrendered were singles. Simmons, 18 years old when he made his debut, had a shutout going until two outs in the ninth of the Phillies’ 3-1 win. Simmons “made the famed home-run hitting Giants look like powder puff punchers,” Inquirer sports writer Stan Baumgartner observed. “The great Johnny Mize, with 51 [home runs] to his credit, got only one shot out of the infield in five attempts, a squib single to left.”
Notable: Simmons is the most successful pitcher on this list, winning 193 games in his major league career. He was 17-8 for the 1950 “Whiz Kids” club, but was called into military duty and unable to pitch in the World Series, which the Phillies lost in four games. Simmons missed the entire 1951 season, but came back the following year and pitched for the Phillies until 1960. He eventually did get his World Series ring as a member of the 1964 Cardinals, the club that took advantage of the Phillies’ epic collapse that year to win the NL pennant.
9. Jocko Thompson
Debut: Thompson walked five and struck out five. The Inquirer’s Baumgartner wrote, “Thompson, decorated six times as a wartime paratrooper, pitched superb ball. He made only 116 tosses during the game and was in ‘front’ of 23 of the 37 men he faced.” That was the extent of the analytics for the day.
Notable: Thompson pitched four seasons in the majors, all with the Phillies. He went 6-11 in his career and ironically took Simmons’ spot on the playoff roster in 1950, though he did not play in the World Series. He was a first lieutenant with the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He led a charge in 1944 during Operation Market Garden in which he and his unit captured a bridge in the Netherlands. In 2004, that bridge was renamed in Thompson’s honor. Robin Roberts once remarked that Phillies teammates were aware that Thompson, who earned two Purple Hearts during his service, “was walking around with a good amount of shrapnel in his body.” Thompson died in 1988 at age 71.
8. Larry Christenson
Debut : Christenson was just 19 years old when he pitched in his first major league game. He had a shutout going with two outs in the ninth inning. The run he allowed came on a wild pitch to Jim Fregosi, which allowed Cleon Jones to score from second base. Christenson threw 130 pitches with three strikeouts and six walks. He was helped by three double plays turned behind him.
Notable: Christenson, who is tied with Rick Wise for the Phillies club record with 11 career home runs by a pitcher, went 0-for-3 at the plate on the night of his debut with three strikeouts. He quipped to manager Danny Ozark in the middle of the game, “I gotta work on my hitting.” Christenson pitched for the Phillies from 1973-83 and is the only person on this list who won a World Series with the club.
7. Mike Wallace
Notable: Wallace was traded to the Yankees the following season. He started only four of his 117 games. His debut was his only complete game.
6. Claude Willoughby
Debut: He outdueled Pete Donohue, a 21-game winner that season, in a 5-1 Phillies win in Cincinnati.
Notable: Willoughby pitched on some pretty bad teams in his six seasons with the Phillies. He went 4-17 for the 1930 club which lost 102 games and had a team ERA of 6.71. The story goes that team captain Fresco Thompson delivered the lineup card before a game with the No. 9 hitter listed as “Willoughby — and others.” Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem didn’t think it was funny and made Thompson cross it out. Willoughby, Thompson said, was knocked out in the first inning of that game.
5. Dave Downs
Debut: Six of the eight hits Downs gave up to the Braves were singles. He had two strikeouts and his start was in the second game of a doubleheader in front of 5,239 fans at cavernous Fulton County Stadium. Downs also had an RBI single in the 3-0 win. The Phillies lost the opener, 10-7, to fall 34 games back of the Pirates in the NL East. The next day, Steve Carlton also shut out the Braves in his 23rd complete game of the season. He finished with 30.
Notable: Five Phillies have tossed shutouts in their major-league debuts, and Downs’ was the most recent. This was the only win of his career. He injured his shoulder in a start two weeks later — against the Cardinals, and opposite Bob Gibson — and never pitched in the majors again. His brother, Kelly Downs, pitched for Giants and A’s from 1986-93.
4. Earl Caldwell
Debut: Sounds like Caldwell needed some heavy guile to get through the Braves lineup. He “stood the Boston [hitters] on their heads with a wide breaking curve and a worthy display of courage in the pinch,” the Inquirer wrote. It was Caldwell’s only win of the season.
Notable: Caldwell had a remarkable career. He spent the next six seasons in the minors before pitching for the St. Louis Browns from 1935-37. He again developed arm trouble and did not pitch in the majors from 1938-44. Caldwell was 39 years old when he signed with the White Sox in 1945. He went 13-4 as a reliever the following season and pitched in the majors until 1948, 20 years after his debut with the Phillies. His career record was 33-43.
» READ MORE: Murphy: If José Alvarado took PEDs, he made a rational choice. Phillies are cooked either way. 3. Hal Kelleher
Debut: He pitched a four-hit shutout at Cincinnati in a 1-0 Phillies win. Kelleher walked five that day, which led The Inquirer to observe, “... his lapses in control were just frequent enough to keep the Reds worried and stopped them taking any toeholds at the plate.” It was the only shutout of his career.
Notable: It pretty much all went downhill after that for Kelleher, who went 4-9 with 5.95 ERA in a career that ended four years later. In his final appearance, he gave up 12 runs in one inning to the Cubs in 1938. It’s still the record for most runs allowed by a pitcher in a single-inning outing. Kelleher was born in Philadelphia and became a city police officer after his playing days. He died in 1989 in Cape May Court House.
2. Niles Jordan
Debut: Jordan, another World War II veteran, pitched the first of three consecutive shutouts against the Reds. That Phillies club, unable to sustain the success of the “Whiz Kids” run to the World Series in 1950, went 73-81 in 1951.
Notable: Jordan fought at the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was 19 when he was serving on the Navy destroyer USS Bennett when it was attacked by a Japanese kamikaze fighter. He escaped injury, but three crewmen were killed and 18 were injured, according to Gary Bedingfield’s Baseball In Wartime website. He joined the Phillies’ organization in 1948, signing for $150 a month.
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Debut: He took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in a 1-0 win over the Cubs at Baker Bowl, the Phillies home park located at Broad & Lehigh. “He used mighty good judgment in working the corners on the hitters and, as a result, the [Cubs] never got a smell of a hit till the seventh inning,” wrote Jim Nasium, of the Inquirer. “And let me tell you that’s some pitching for a kid just debuting.” The Phillies acquired Stack a month earlier from the Cubs.
Notable: Stack, a native of Chicago, pitched in the majors from 1910-14, going 26-24. His career is mostly forgotten, but his son was part of one of the all-time gaffes in newspaper history. John Stack was a pressman who was involved in the decision on Nov. 3, 1948 to start the presses for the Chicago Tribune’s infamous front-page headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
Sources: Inquirer research, Baseball-Reference.com , BaseballInWartime.com.
