Blast From The Past: Juan Marichal 1960

The first few seasons after the Giants moved to San Francisco must have been an incredible time to be a fan.  No less than three future Hall of Fame players made their MLB debuts as Giants over 3 consecutive seasons, Orlando Cepeda in 1958, Willie McCovey in 1959 and Juan Marichal in 1960.  All three players announced their greatness immediately with outstanding debut performances.

The Giants were one of the first teams to aggressively scout and sign players from Latin American and established a virtual pipeline in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  Juan Marichal had made a name for himself pitching for the Dominican Republic's Air Force team.  In his youth, he was a sidearmer.  After signing with the Giants, their minor league coaches convinced him to throw overhand.  Marichal added in the big leg kick to help him come over-the-top.  By the time he reached the major leagues in 1960, he was able to throw all five of his pitches, FB, Curve, Slider, Changeup and Screwball from 3 arm angles, overhand, 3/4 and sidearm.  Generally speaking, it's not a great idea to throw that many different pitches as it dilutes the pitcher's best pitches, but Marichal seemingly could throw all of them equally well and with amazing ease.

Juan's MLB debut on July 19, 1960 at age 22 could not have gone much better.  He retired the first 18 Phillies he faced and finished with a complete game, 1-hit shutout with 1 BB and 12 K's.  He followed that up by allowing just 1 run on 4 hits in another complete game in his second start against the Pirates.  He topped that off with a 10 inning complete game win while allowing 2 runs on 7 hits against the Braves.  He was less spectacular in his subsequent starts but finished the season with a record of 6-2 with a 2.66 ERA.  6 of his 11 starts were complete games.  Wow!

Juan went on to have a bit of a sophomore slump in 1961 finishing 13-10 with a 3.89 ERA.  He improved to 18-11 with a 3.36 ERA in the Pennant winning year of 1962.  He then broke out in all of his Hall of Fame glory in 1963 with an amazing record of 25-8 with a 2.41 ERA and an incredible 321.1 IP.  1963 was the first of 6 20-win seasons.

It all started with that amazing debut as a rookie in 1960.  Can you imagine attending that game and here's this rookie making his first start kicking his front leg up over his head and delivering a bewildering array of pitches from every imaginable arm angle?  Add in that the Phillies hitters were completely baffled and it must have been an unforgettable experience!

*Parts of biographical information from Juan's SABR biography and stats from Baseball Reference both linked to the left.