Before the Royals Get Eliminated

This is something I noticed last weekend, posted it to a Facebook group, and was mentioned this morning on the Effectively Wild podcast:

I noticed that Royals relievers Kelvin Herrera (1.43), Wade Davis (1.00), and Greg Holland (1.44) all have ERAs below 1.50. I used the Play Index and discovered that they're the second team in history with three pitchers, 60+ innings pitched, ERA below 1.50. The other team: the 1907 Cubs, who used a total of eight pitchers that year and had a TEAM ERA of 1.73. Of course, the Cubs' three pitchers were all starters.

The typical modern team carries 12 or 13 pitchers and, over the course of a season, uses 25 or so, including trades, call-ups, etc. Of the Cubs' eight pitchers, one was a 20-year-old who appeared in five games. So they had seven pitchers who pitched 1356.2 innings, or about 193.2 per pitcher.