100 Greatest Phillies: 68 – Dick Ruthven

Dick Ruthven
Starting Pitcher
1973-1975, 1978-1983

Career w/Phillies: 1262.2 IP / 78-65 / 3.99 ERA / 717 K

Dick Ruthven is the classic example of a pitcher who gave his team just enough to win. Always sporting good win-loss records, Ruthven was an expert at going six or seven innings, giving up two or three runs per start. Of course, he was also very good at pitching into the ninth inning, doing that countless times during his Phillie career. He had two stints in Philly, first as a rookie having a mixed experience — his ERA hovered at 4.00, but he won very little. He returned in 1978 when the Phils traded Gene Garber to Atlanta for him. While Garber pitched well in Atlanta, Ruthven did a nice job in Philly, winning 61 games in his six seasons during that second stint.

Comment: Ruthven wasn’t a dominant pitcher by any means, but he won a lot of games and provided a stable No. 3 during those great Phillie teams of the Schmidt-Carlton years.

Tim Malcolm

Tim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.