Ty Blach and Larry Jaster

Phil Gurnee ♦ March 8, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

My favorite baseball writer tweeted about Ty Blach today

Ty Blach leads the Giants in strikeouts this Cactus League. A huge fan of the idea that Zaidi has known how to turn him into Dallas Keuchel this whole time.

— Grant Brisbee (@GrantBrisbee) March 8, 2019

and I remembered I had written about Ty Blach last summer.

It is not quite Larry Jaster, but the way in which Ty Blach dominates the Dodgers with a K rate bordering on non-existent is something else

A few minutes later a Giant fan tweeted.

If only he faced the Dodgers every game he pitched

— Electro (@ImNotHuman123) March 8, 2019

which of course is the trigger for Larry Jaster. Even back in 2010 not even noted Dodger historian Eric Stephen knew about Larry Jaster so might be a good time for a refresher on the biggest Dodger killer. From the 2010 TrueBlueLA Phil Gurnee archives

The Dodgers won the pennant in 1966 in spite of Larry Jaster. I have no idea if any pitcher has ever enjoyed the kind of dominance Jaster did over the Dodgers in 1966. While the NL Champion Dodgers had trouble scoring runs, this was a team that still went to the World Series in 1966.

Pretty good bet that only a handful of TBLA readers have ever heard of Larry Jaster, so let me give you a quick recap about how this rookie almost kept the Dodgers from being embarrassed in October.  Jaster made his debut in 1965 against the Dodgers and threw one shutout inning. It was a harbinger of things to come. Alan Schwarz of ESPN picked Larry Jasters 1965 Sept debut of one of the top 10 debuts in baseball history

All Jaster did after debuting against the Dodgers for that one inning was:

A hard-throwing bonus baby known as “the Creeper” because he was so quiet, Jaster made a plenty loud debut in September 1965. He went 3-0, 1.61 in four appearances, completing all three of his starts.

That was nothing compared to what he did against the Dodgers in 1966.

April 25th, 1966, defeats the Dodgers 2 – 0, complete game shutout, seven hits, no walks, 7 K’s.

July 3rd, 1966, defeats Dodgers again 2 – 0, complete game shutout, three hits, one walk, 5 K’s

July 29th, 1966, defeats Dodgers 4 – 0, complete game shutout, five hits, two walks, 8 K’s

Aug 19, 1966, defeat Dodgers again 4 – 0 , complete game shutout, five hits, three walks, 7 K’s

Sept 28th, 1966 defeats Dodgers 2  – 0 , complete game shutout, four hits, two walks, 4 K’s

The shutout on the 28th was notable in that it almost knocked the Dodgers out of the World Series but they won two of their last four games to win the pennant by 1 1/2 games.

Jaster would only throw these five shutouts in 1966,  he only made 21 starts, and five of those starts were shutouts against the Dodgers.  Even with all that he would not be the ROY in 1966. Maybe the writers knew something. The 22 year old would only throw two more shutouts the rest of his career even though he pitched during the pitcher friendly 1967/1968 years.  He was pretty much done by 1969 but for one year he did everything he could to keep the Dodgers out of the 66 World Series.

I guess it does need to be mentioned that the 1966 Dodgers were shut out 17 times.

Still 45 scoreless innings against one team that went to the World Series was quite a feat, and I don’t think anyone has ever done that before or since but I’d love to know if that is true or not.