About the Worst Baseball Score Ever

Texas Rangers 30, Baltimore Orioles 3. Baseball fans surely did a double take that day when this score was posted, but it was not a mistake. In the most lopsided baseball game in history, the Rangers pasted the Orioles by 27 runs! The proud Baltimore franchise, which had fallen on hard times, was now known for being on the wrong side of the worst baseball score ever! Here are the details.

  1. The Facts

    • On August 22nd, 2007, the Rangers met the Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader at Camden Yards in Baltimore. When the first game ended, the Rangers had scored an incredible 30 runs on 29 base hits, including 6 home runs. The Rangers had a pair of batters accumulate 7 runs batted in, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vasquez. Baltimore used only four pitchers total, with the most effective of the quartet allowing 7 runs!

    Time Frame

    • The entire game took just 3 hours and 21 minutes, which is a little over what the average major league game takes to play. The 30 runs broke a record that had stood for more than 57 years. Strangely enough, it was the third time within 4 years that a major league team had scored at least 25 runs in one game. Boston walloped the Marlins with 25 in 2003, and the Royals tallied 26 in 2004 versus the Tigers.

    Significance

    • The Rangers' last run of the game gave them the modern-day record for most runs scored in one contest. Their 30 runs were one more than the 29 the Boston Red Sox put up against the St. Louis Browns in 1950. In the second game, Texas won 9 to 7, giving them 39 runs in one doubleheader, the highest total by any team post-1900 and the new American League record. The National League mark is 43, set in 1894. The Rangers, bolstered by the glut of scoring, went 15-4 in their next 19 games before returning to mediocrity, finishing the year at 75-87.

    Features

    • The game featured several baseball oddities. One was that under Major League Baseball rules, Wes Littleton, a Texas relief pitcher, came into the game in the sixth inning with a 14-3 lead and was still credited with a save after pitching the final three frames. One of the weirdest things about the game involving the worst baseball score ever was that Texas scored in only four innings--5 runs in the fourth, 9 in the sixth, 10 in the eighth and 6 more in the ninth. Besides the record for most runs in a game, Texas also set the record for most runs batted in for one contest, since all 30 runs were driven in legitimately. Baltimore committed just one error in the game, a fielding gaffe by third baseman Melvin Mora.

    Evolution

    • The evolution of the modern-era mark for most runs scored in a game culminated in what has been called the worst baseball score ever in this Rangers-Orioles meeting. In 1901, both Brooklyn and New York scored 25 runs in a game. That standard stood for 10 seasons as the Reds scored 26 in 1911. After that, it took just 4 years to erase that number, with the Indians beating the Red Sox with 27 in 1923. The Cardinals set the still-standing National League record in 1929 with 28; the Red Sox scored their 29 in 1950. The new record of 30 may stand the test of time for years to come.