Best Dodgers’ 60-game starts & finishes: Pitching

With a 60-game MLB season approaching, we already looked at the best 60-game starts and finishes by Dodgers batters. Now, we turn to the pitchers.

Using the indispensable Stathead pitching game finder from Baseball-Reference, here are some of the best 60-game starts and finishes by pitchers in Dodgers history.

ERA*

• 1.31 — Don Drysdale (1968, first 60)
• 1.35 — Don Sutton (1976, final 60)
• 1.39 — Orel Hershiser (1985, final 60)
• 1.40 — Dazzy Vance (1928, final 60)
• 1.41 — Rube Melton (1946, final 60)
• 1.46 — Clayton Kershaw (2016, first 60)
• 1.47 — Mike Morgan (1989, first 60)
• 1.48 — Hyun-jin Ryu (2019, first 60)

WHIP*

• 0.647 — Clayton Kershaw (2016, first 60)
• 0.795 — Sandy Koufax (1965, final 60)
• 0.788 — Kershaw (2015, final 60)
• 0.808 — Hyun-jin Ryu (2019, first 60)
• 0.822 — Koufax (1963, first 60)
• 0.846 — Don Sutton (1972, first 60)
• 0.858 — Don Drysdale (1965, first 60)
• 0.866 — Zack Greinke (2015, final 60)
• 0.872 — Sutton (1976, final 60)
• 0.8737 — Kershaw (2014, final 60)
• 0.8738 — Walker Buehler (2018, final 60)
• 0.877 — Drysdale (1964, first 60)
• 0.892 — Koufax (1964, first 60)
• 0.893 — Sutton (1975, first 60)

*minimum 60 innings, in the live ball era (1920-present)

Strikeouts

• 160 — Sandy Koufax (1966, final 60)
• 131 — Koufax (1962, first 60)
• 127 — Koufax (1965, first 60)
• 126 — Dazzy Vance (1924, final 60)
• 118 — Koufax (1963, final 60)
• 117 — Koufax (1966, first 60)
• 116 — Bill Singer (1969, first 60)
• 116 — Clayton Kershaw (2015, final 60)

Wins

• 12 — Dazzy Vance (1924, final 60)
• 12 — Don Newcome (1956, final 60)
• 12 — Don Sutton (1974, final 60)
• 11 — Jeff Pfeffer (1916, first 60)
• 11 — Dutch Ruether (1922, first 60)
• 11 — Vance (1928, final 60)
• 11 — Watty Clark (1932, final 60)
• 11 — Van Lingle Mungo (1934, first 60)
• 11 — Carl Erskine (1953, final 60)
• 11 — Don Newcombe (1955, first 60)
• 11 — Don Drysdale (1965, first 60)
• 11 — Sandy Koufax (1966, first 60)
• 11 — Burt Hooton (1975, final 60)

Saves

• 21 — Eric Gagne (2003, first 60)
• 21 — Gagne (2003, final 60)
• 20 — Todd Worrell (1996, final 60)
• 20 — Jeff Shaw (1998, final 60)
• 20 — Gagne (2002, first 60)
• 19 — Kenley Jansen (2015, final 60)

Those Sandy Koufax strikeout totals continue to amaze, as Clayton Kershaw’s peak-efficiency 2016 season.

Don Drysdale’s 58 consecutive scoreless innings were captured in the Dodgers’ first 60 games of 1968 when he produced a stellar 1.31 ERA during that span in the year of the pitcher. Orel Hershiser’s 59-inning scoreless streak 20 years later was during a final 60 games that saw him post a 1.61 ERA.