Best In Baseball

Teams in 2011 with the most games in which the starter qualifies for a win and allows zero runs:

• Boston Red Sox, 8 (Lester 2, Beckett 2, Matsuzaka 2, Buchholz 1, Lackey 1)
• Milwaukee Brewers, 8 (Gallardo 2, Marcum 2, Wolf 2, Narveson 2)
• Philadelphia Phillies, 7 (Hamels 2, Halladay 1, Lee 1, Oswalt 1, Worley 1, Kendrick 1)
• Atlanta Braves, 7 (Lowe 2, Hanson 2, Hudson 1, Beachy 1, Jurrjens 1)
• St. Louis Cardinals, 6 (Lohse 2, Garcia 2, Carpenter 1, Westbrook 1)
• Oakland Athletics, 6 (Gonzalez 2, Anderson 1, McCarthy 1, Ross 1, Cahill 1)

Red Sox teams with at least eight such starts in their first 35 games since 1919:

• 2002 (Pedro 2, Lowe 2, Darren Oliver 2, John Burkett 1, Frank Castillo 1).

The Padres had 11 such starts through 35 games last year, second all-time only to the 1968 Indians, who had 12. The Royals had eight such starts at this point in 2009, as did the 2003 Expos, the '02 Sox and the 2001 Braves. 

Not that it means anything. Of all those teams, only the '01 Braves went to the playoffs, losing in the NLCS to the eventual World Champion Diamondbacks (who had some good pitching of their own). And of the six teams represented on the top of the 2011 list, only the Cardinals and Phillies are in first place.