Once upon a time, one of the Four Horsemen of the Baltimore Orioles pitched in Houston. His screwball was devastating in a way that few pitches can be these days, but his time with the Astros was relatively short.
That's right, we're talking about Mike Cuellar today. Specifically, we're focusing on his game score of 101 that he put up on July 24, 1967. That's the highest game score by any player in team history.
What did Cuellar do to get such a high score? First of all, he threw an 11-inning complete game. Only eight pitchers in team history have thrown more innings in a single game, including two guys (Ken Forsch, Don Wilson) that threw 13 innings.
However, the reason Cuellar's game stood out is he gave up just two hits and one unearned run to earn the victory in a 2-1 affair with the Philadelphia Phillies. Cuellar walked one batter and struck out 12. That includes striking out Gene Oliver three times, Bill White twice, Dick Allen once along with Cookie Rojas, Gary Sutherland, Billy Cowan and Chuck Hiller.
Only three players reached second base all game, and only one (Bobby Wine) reached third. The Phillies scored their run after Cuellar walked Tony Taylor, who was sacrificed over to second. He then scored on a throwing error by Houston third baseman Eddie Mathews on a ball hit by Don Lock.
One of Houston's runs was also unearned, as Joe Morgan scored on a sacrifice fly by Eddie Mathews. To top things off, Cuellar scored the game's winning run, scoring from third on a single up the middle by Jimmy Wynn.
The other crazy thing about this game is Houston manager Grady Hatton decided not to use any pinch hitters whatsoever. In eleven innings. Just left his pitcher in there and went. I'm not sure about the truth to the rumor Hatton had fallen asleep in the third inning and didn't wake up again until right before Wynn's critical hit.