While watching and writing about a great night of baseball, a reader asked me a question on Twitter after Mariners starter Doug Fister suffered another tough defeat, dropping his record to 3-12 despite a 3.33 ERA.

The question: Which pitcher has the most losses during the expansion era with an ERA under 3.50?

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index, an answer was quick to come by: Four guys lost 20. Two of those were knuckleballers and are unique cases: Phil Niekro went 21-20 with a 3.39 ERA for the 1979 Braves, making 44 starts (and allowing 31 unearned runs); Wilbur Wood went 24-20 with a 3.46 ERA for the White Sox in 1973, a year he made 48 starts. The third guy was Jerry Koosman in a more conventional way: He went 8-20 with a 3.49 ERA for the 1977 Mets in 32 starts.

But the guy with 20 losses with the lowest ERA was a less-famous pitcher named Turk Farrell of the expansion 1962 Houston Colt .45s. Farrell was a good pitcher, a four-time All-Star who won 104 games in the big leagues. After several good years with the Phillies, he had pitched poorly for the Dodgers in 1961 and they left him unprotected in the expansion draft.

Farrell went 10-20 with a 3.02 ERA for Houston. What's remarkable about the season is that he started just 29 games, as he pitched 14 times in relief. But even more amazing: Baseball-Reference rates him as the NL's most valuable pitcher, with a 7.4 WAR (wins above replacement level). Let's revisit that season.

Farrell had started exactly one game in the majors before 1962 -- his first one, in 1956. He had been a reliever after that. He got the save in the second game of the season for Houston, and then started the fourth, pitching a solid six innings but picking up the loss. He started again on May 6 and threw a complete game win over Milwaukee, striking out 11. He was back in relief two days later, but shut out the Giants on May 11 and remained in the rotation thereafter, making a few relief appearances.

Anyway, here a few other "highlights" from his season:

• On June 22 and 26, he had consecutive starts allowing three hits, but lost both games 2-0.
• For some reason, he didn't pitch again until July 8, when he lost both games of a doubleheader in relief.
• He pitched 12 scoreless innings against the Reds on Aug. 6 but got a no-decision.
• He lost his 20th game on the final day the season -- a 2-1 defeat.

Farrell ended up 8-17 as a starter, 2-3 as a reliever. The .45s finished last in the NL in runs scored, tallying even fewer runs than the famous '62 Mets.

So why does Farrell rate as the NL's best pitcher, at least according to Baseball-Reference?

Sandy Koufax led the NL with a 2.54 ERA, but he pitched just 184 innings. After that, nine pitchers had ERAs between 2.80 and 3.07. Don Drysdale won 25 games with a 2.83 ERA to win the Cy Young Award, but he pitched in Dodger Stadium, which greatly favored pitchers (Drysdale had a 2.16 ERA at home, 3.68 on the road), so he's downgraded for that. When you crunch the numbers, Farrell rates just ahead of Cincinnati's Bob Purkey.

And Farrell did have a great year. Besides ranking high in ERA, he was second in baserunners per nine, fifth in strikeout rate, fourth in strikeouts, sixth in walk rate, third in strikeout/walk ratio ... and second in losses. In a year without a clear No. 1 best pitcher, Turk Farrell was as good as anyone.

Farrell was pretty good again in 1963, matching his 3.02 ERA but going 14-13. He started the first exhibition game in the Astrodome in 1965 and pitched through the 1969 season. He moved to England after his retirement, where he worked as oil rig foreman in the North Sea. He died in a car accident in Great Yarmouth, England, in 1977, just 43 years old.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

The Colt .45s played their home games at Colt Stadium, which was actually a pretty decent pitcher's park