When Gerardo Parra took the mound for the Nationals on August 3, 2019, together with his crew trailing 11-4 within the eighth inning in Arizona, he had no method of realizing the doubtful historical past he was about to make in the one pitching look of his 12-year profession. He walked the primary three batters he confronted, allowed an RBI single to Alex Avila, after which walked Diamondbacks reliever Zack Godley to carry house one other run. That was sufficient for supervisor Davey Martinez, who opted to switch Parra on the bump with second baseman Brian Dozer to face the lefty-hitting Jarrod Dyson. To arrange his desired defensive alignment with out making a substitution, Martinez moved third baseman Anthony Rendon to the keystone and despatched the left-handed Parra to the recent nook — a place he’d by no means performed earlier than. Dyson doubled house two runs, each charged to Parra. As switch-hitter Ketel Marte stepped into the right-handed batter’s field to face Dozer’s floaters, Martinez flipped Rendon and Parra, who then made his first and solely profession look at second. Marte flied out to proper earlier than Eduardo Escobar, a switch-hitter additionally batting right-handed, launched a three-run homer, with the primary of these runs additionally touchdown on Parra’s ledger.
In fact, three months later, the Nationals would win their first and solely World Sequence championship, with Parra conducting rousing renditions of “Child Shark” each time he batted in Washington, however on that exact early-August night time, issues acquired ugly. Together with his ultimate line of zero innings, 5 runs (all earned), 4 walks, and one hit, Parra turned one in every of solely three gamers to permit 5 or extra runs with out recording an out of their solely profession pitching look.
I carry this up as a result of the primary query on this week’s mailbag is concerning the worst main league pitcher ever. Parra is just not the reply as a result of he was probably not a pitcher, however his outing was a enjoyable little bit of trivia I got here throughout in my analysis, so I had no alternative however to share it with you. Earlier than we get to the precise worst-pitcher-ever candidates, I’d wish to remind all of you that whereas anybody can submit a query, this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. Should you aren’t but a Member and wish to hold studying, you may join a Membership right here. It’s one of the best ways to each expertise the location and assist our workers, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, in the event you’d wish to ask a query for an upcoming mailbag, ship me an e mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.