Saturday, May 29, 2010

Senators Saturday - Jim Hannan, 1969.

In 1968 Jim Hannan, shown here on card number 106 of the 1969 Topps set, won a job in the Senators' starting rotation. In 1969 he was out to keep it.

Jim appeared in 35 games on the mound for Washington in 1969 and started 28 of them. In total he logged 158.1 innings pitched, third most of the rotation. He allowed 64 earned runs and his 3.64 ERA was third best in the rotation. Jim struck out 72 and walked a startling 91 of the 685 batters he faced that season. He also allowed 17 home runs, second only to Joe Coleman (26) who faced over 300 more batters than Hannan did.

Jim's mediocre numbers were reflected in his 7-6 record on the season. Unfortunately for him the numbers he needed to get down from 1968 were up and the numbers he needed to get up were down. Not a good trend if he wanted to keep that spot in the rotation in 1970.