Here’s something else remarkable about today’s game: since 1952 — the length of time that baseball-reference.com has play-by-play data — there have been 159 games in which a starting pitcher left after recording zero outs and giving up at least five runs. Only four of those games resulted in that team’s bullpen throwing nine scoreless innings and in only one of them — this White Sox 6-5 win over the Athletics on September 27, 1981 — did that team come back to win.
The Cubs fell two outs short of tying this mark when John Grabow gave up a meaningless HR to Ryan Ludwick with one out in the ninth.