The Best Pitching Seasons of the Past *15 Years (Starters)

Jose Rijo takes the cake with this one. I cheated and stretched the list to 16 years to get him in. In 1993, Jose went nuts on National League batters, posting a 2.48 ERA and 227 SOs in 257 IP. But because Jose only went 14-9, he placed 5th in Cy Young voting behind four 20-game winners (in order, Greg Maddux-ATL, Bill Swift-SF, Tom Glavine-ATL and John Burkett-SF), even though Jose finished 2nd in ERA, 1st in SOs, 1st in SOs/9IP and 1st in games started. This is a dazzling example of the irrelevancy of a pitcher's Win-Loss record. Swift, Glavine and Burkett had excellent years, but they were surrounded by better players. Atlanta won 104. San Fran won 103. Cincinnati won 73. To the victor goes the spoils. Do I sound bitter?

Here are the next best individual seasons for a Reds starting pitcher since 1993...

	Player	Year	GS	IP	ERA	W-L	SO
2	E. Volquez	2008	33	196	3.21	17-6	206
3	B. Arroyo	2006	35	240.7	3.29	14-11	184
4	E.Dessens	2002	30	178	3.03	7-8	93
5	P. Harnisch	1998	32	209	3.14	14-7	157
6	J. Rijo	1994	26	172.3	3.08	9-6	171
7	P. Schourek	1995	29	190.3	3.22	18-7	160
8	A.Harang	2007	34	231.7	3.73	16-6	208
9	A.Harang	2006	36	234.3	3.76	16-11	216
10	P. Harnisch	1999	33	198.3	3.68	16-10	120

Some things to think about...
A.) Edinson's year made it a tad easier to let go of Josh Hamilton.
B.) Bronson can be really, really good, or so, so terrible.
C.) How do you post a 3.03 ERA in 30 games and go 7-8. Oh, I know--because you pitched during the Dark Ages in 2002 when our best offensive season came from Austin Kearns in limited action.
D.) Even in Aaron Harang's good years, he still flirted with a 4.00 ERA.
E.) The Reds have not had good pitching in a long time.