Most consecutive innings without allowing an earned run, Detroit Tigers

Over the course of six starts in 1986, Jack Morris went more than 44 innings without allowing an earned run, a Detroit record.

Rick Porcello tossed his second consecutive shutout on Tuesday to become the first Detroit Tigers’ pitcher to do that since Jack Morris in 1986 (Jack fired three straight shutouts, a franchise record). As a result, I put together this list of the longest scoreless innings streaks by Tigers’ pitchers, dating back to 1914 when we have the reliable game-by-game statistics.

The list is limited to pitchers who were primarily starters. A few Detroit relievers (Fred Gladding, Jose Valverde, John Hiller, Joaquin Benoit, and Al Alburquerque) have had streaks of more than 20 innings, Gladding topped Detroit relievers with 29 scoreless innings in 1966-67. But I wanted this list to show the starters who have to log several innings in one outing, as opposed to coming in to face a single batter or pitching one inning a game.

This list is for earned runs — if a run scored on a pitcher because of an error by his teammates, his streak was not broken. This is the standard that Major League Baseball uses for their official scoreless streaks. The major league record is 59 innings by Orel Hershiser in 1988 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hershiser’s amazing streak (which included six shutouts) came at the end of the regular season, and he also fired eight more scoreless innings in his first postseason start. Similarly, Justin Verlander has twice posted impressive streaks at the end of the season and into the postseason for the Tigers, in 2012 (32 1/3 innings) and 2013 (36 2/3 innings). Pretty good, but not listed here since we’re looking only at regular season performance.