Giants ninth. F.Rodriguez pitching. Burriss hit an infield single to shortstop. Burriss stole second. Ford hit an infield single to third, Burriss to third. Rowand fouled out to first baseman I.Davis, Ford to second. Tejada popped out to second baseman Dan.Murphy. Fontenot was intentionally walked. Posey flied out to center fielder Pridie.

– STATS Gameview

It’s tough to completely kill Francisco Rodriguez for loading the bases in the top of the ninth last night. Neither of the two hits left the infield. Darren Ford might have been out at first on his bunt if Daniel Murphy didn’t drop David Wright’s throw. Stuff like that.

Still, by loading the bases and escaping without allowing a run — as our man Catsmeat pointed out last night — Rodriguez managed to both raise his already massive WHIP and lower his puny earned-run average. If you’re playing at home, he now can boast a miserable 1.833 mark in the first metric — a rate to make Oliver Perez blush — and a 1.50 ERA.

This is why we know the sample sizes are still too small to make any judgments. Stuff like this can’t last.

Just for fun, I used the baseball-reference Play Index to look up how many guys have thrown at least 20 innings in a season with an ERA below 2.00 and a WHIP above 1.50. This is for a full season, so it’s not a fair assessment of the rarity of K-Rod’s stretch. Presumably many more players have gone 12-inning stretches with absurdly high WHIPs and low ERAs, the stats just got buried in the larger samples.

Anyway, it’s not a long list. And it turns out there was a pitcher named Crazy Schmit: