San Francisco Giants Starters Make History Yet Again, This Time With Scoreless Streak

April 05, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Barry Zito (75) leaves after the end of the top of seventh inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at AT

Stop me if you’ve heard this before in recent years – the San Francisco Giants have made history.

To start the season, the San Francisco Giants starters have not given up an earned run in 26 innings of work – only the second team where the starters haven’t given up an earned run in their seasons first four games since 1916. Yes, math geeks – that’s ninety-seven years. The lone other team to accomplish such were the 1976 Milwaukee Brewers, though, in a wonky fashion as they played their first four games in the span of eight days and started 1977 All-Star pitcher Jim Slaton twice in the season’s first three games who tossed two complete game shutouts in the four game stretch. The Brew-Crew starters tossed 29.2 innings of scoreless ball in those first four games. They extended their streak to 32.2 innings before finally being scored upon, something that would force Ryan Vogelsong to toss 7 innings of unearned run ball to beat the record this afternoon.

Speaking of Vogelsong, he’ll oppose St. Louis Cardinal starter Shelby Miller who’ll be making his first ever career start against the Giants. Miller did pitch against the Giants in last season’s NLCS, throwing 3.1 innings (all at AT&T Park), giving up two earned runs in the process.