"Even the losers get lucky sometimes"
—Tom "Don't Call Me Gary" Petty

O villain! Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.
—William "Author" Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
—Jean-Paul "Bako" Sartre

After a 3-1 victory over the A's today, Detroit's Mike Maroth improved his record to 4-1. Considering the fact that Maroth was 9-21 last season and lost the most games by a pitcher since 1974 when four pitchers lost at least that many: Mickey Lolich (16-21), Bill Bonham (11-22), Steve Rogers (15-22), and Randy Jones (8-22).

Maroth is now on a pace to win twenty games (20-5). I highly doubt that he will win that many given his poor overall performance (4.86 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, .278 OBA) and the fact that pitches for the Tigers. He also is coming off two poor starts, five runs in 5.1 innings in an 11-9 loss to the Angels May 3 and nine runs (eight earned) on seven hits, six walks, and zero strikeouts in four innings in the crazy 16-15 loss to the Rangers after being staked to a 15-5 lead. In the process his ERA rose by two full runs. The Tigers offense which was non-existent last year has rushed to Maroth's aid scoring 59 runs in his seven starts or just under 8.5 per game.

Let's assume that Maroth's season continues as it had in April (3.58 ERA),that the Tigers continue to provide him great run support, and that Maroth does end up a twenty-game winner. Would such a turnaround be unprecedented at least since the advent of five-man rotations or since World War II? Here's a list of twenty-game losers since 1900 who went on to win twenty games the next season (Note: There are 135 all-time but only 23 since 1900):

Maroth's winning percentage has improved from .300 to .800. There are only 23 pitchers in baseball history who have improved their winning percentage by 500 percentage points (min. 10 decisions). They are in descending order of winning percentage improvement (and didn't you know I would list them?):

There aren’t that many great names in that list. There are a lot of veteran, journeymen types on the list, which perhaps doesn't bode well for Mike Maroth's future should he actually end up qualifying for the list. Don Larsen appears on it twice demonstrating how odd Larsen's career really was.