Has a pitcher ever filled every column in his line? (IOW-served up a HR, Struck out a batter, walked someone, hit someone, and committed a balk)
I’d guess that has happened. Start by looking at balks and hit batters, since those are the rarest events.
I would be immensely surprised if this didn’t happen reasonably frequently through the course of baseball history. Balks are uncommon, but given how common strikeouts, walks, and homers are, you’ve got to think someone’s pulled it off at some point and hit a guy, too.
I’d guess Steve Carlton must have accomplished this but I haven’t presently the time to paw through 700 career starts.
Do (his) errors and pickoffs go on his line? (I assume pickoffs do)
Not sure about pick-offs, but how about wild pitches.
OG-Forgot Wild Pitches! Good job reminding me.
So I got to wondering about this. I knew of this dataset, and decided to have some fun. So, through the magic of SQL, the magic of the Dope, and a bit of geekiness, your question is answered.
These figures represent available stats from the above link, 1920-2011.
There have been 399 pitching lines meeting the criteria of your OP: one HR, one K, one BB, one HBP, one BK.
If you make further distinction between intentional and unintentional walks, and require one of each, that narrows the results down to 51 games. Also requiring the pitcher to give up at least one single, double, and triple in addition to the homer will whittle it down further still, to 12 outings. Further narrowing the search to require at least one wild pitch yields only two games.
The most recent of these was quite a “busy” performance by Chad Gaudin, pitching for San Diego against Arizona, on May 25, 2009.
My nomination for the busiest though, is one Fred Norman’s outing for the Cubs vs. Pittsburgh on April 21, 1964.
Mr. Norman pitched 8 1/3 innings that day, giving up 8 runs (all earned) on 10 hits (4 homers, 4 singles, a double and a triple). He allowed 6 walks, 3 intentionally. He fanned 7 batters, balked once, hit one batter, gave up two wild pitches, and caught one stealing for good measure.
While Mr. Gaudin and the Padres won their game, sadly, Mr. Norman was the losing pitcher for the Cubs, who went down 8-5.
goldmund-Leaving out giving up a team “cycle”, and ignoring the BB distinctions, but adding in WP. How many is that? Is it the 12 you originally said?
changed the number
That’s still happened 73 times.
I can put this database up in some publicly accessible form if anyone knows sql and wants to poke around.