What is the highest score in MLB history?
The Cubs handed the Pirates the worst defeat in franchise history on Saturday, but these two teams seem to attract strange MLB scoring records.
The Pirates have had a difficult start to the season. Coming into their matchup with the Cubs on Saturday, they were sitting at .500 and looking to get something going their way. Instead, they stumbled at the opening block as they gave up a run in the first, eight runs in the second, and the day just got worse from there. In the end, they were handed the worst loss in franchise history.
The 21-0 loss surpassed the previous worst of 20-0 suffered at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers on April 22, 2010. Last year, they threatened to repeat the misery when they pulled one back at Atlanta and went down 20-1.
In a Murphy’s Law kind of day, the hapless Pirates came out falling below .500 with a 7-8 record. Pirates starting pitchers now have a 6.68 ERA through 15 games, among the worst in MLB. And the 37 runs allowed by Pittsburgh in the first or second innings is far and away the worst in baseball.
The Pirates finished the day with only three hits and committing only two errors, but the Cubs found all the right spots to hit to, scoring their three touchdowns on 23 hits and no errors.
The 21-0 score may have set a Pittsburgh record, but it is not the the highest score ever. That would be 36 runs, also scored by the Cubs, then called the Colts, against the Louisville Colonels on June 29,1897. Interestingly, the Colonels team were essentially the future Pittsburgh Pirates, since their owner Barney Dreyfuss bought the Pirates three years later and took 14 players with him.
The Cubs were also one half of the highest scoring game ever, when their August 25, 1922 game against the Phillies saw a combined score of 49 runs in the 26-23 Cubs victory. And to round out the records, the Cubs, known at the time as the White Stockings, set the record for the most runs scored in a single inning when they put 18 on Detroit on September 6, 1883.
It seems that the Cubs can’t stop scoring, but through all of that, they seem to have trouble getting those bats working in the fall. Let’s hope that this time, they can keep it going.