Tiger Pitcher Recorded Dizzying Win Total of 31

Since 1934, when Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals went 30-7, only one pitcher has had a 30-win season.

The Detroit Tigers’ Denny McLain won his 31st game 31 years ago today, when he scattered eight hits and beat the Yankees in Detroit, 6-2, the 12th consecutive complete game by a Tiger pitcher. McLain would finish 31-6 that year.

As the role of relief pitchers became more prominent, the victory totals of starting pitchers began to fall.

Since 1968, only two pitchers have won as many as 27 games: Oakland’s Bob Welch, who was 27-6 in 1990, and Philadelphia’s Steve Carlton, who was 27-10 in 1972.

McLain notched his 31st at a time when the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle was only days from the end of his 18-year career.

In the eighth inning and Detroit ahead, 6-1, Mantle had a 0-and-2 count, and kiddingly gestured for McLain to groove one, indicating where on the plate he wanted the next pitch. McLain obliged, and Mantle hit it into the upper deck in right field.

It was the 535th and next-to-last homer of his career, moving him past Jimmie Foxx and into third place on the home run list, behind Babe Ruth and Willie Mays.

Asked afterward if he’d sent up a fat pitch to Mantle, McLain feigned shock.

“You don’t think I’d deliberately throw him a home run ball, do you?” he said to a dozen reporters. “There would be a scandal, an investigation of baseball.”

Also on this date: In 1937, Detroit’s Hank Greenberg became the first to hit a ball into Yankee Stadium’s center-field bleachers. . . . In 1973, the Braves’ Davey Johnson hit his 43rd home run, setting a single-season record for second basemen. . . . In 1949, Pittsburgh’s Ralph Kiner hit his 50th home run, giving him two 50-homer seasons. He hit 51 in 1947 and finished with 54 in ’49. . . . In 1959, Jack Nicklaus won the U.S. Amateur championship at Colorado Springs, Colo.