Comments on: And Batting 9th, Starting At D.H.,…

By: wboenig2

wboenig2 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:02:30 +0000

I did some research a year or two ago in which I attempted to relate defensive position to position in the batting order. The two most unusual players of our time were Jason Kendall leading off while playing catcher (447 times at the time of my research) and Jeff Kent batting cleanup while playing second base (1,224 times).

And while this is HIGHLY subjective, I theorized that the most unusual AL batting order by defensive position would look like this: C - 1B - DH - 2B - SS - 3B - RF - LF - CF (just don't ask me to explain or defend my methodology!)

By: Jgeller

Jgeller — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:40:23 +0000

if you search the game logs for DH's starting, batting 9th, for NL teams, facing AL teams, on the road, you get this list. 37 Games, most of which are not great names and probably fit this. There have been 5 games this season like this, 2 of them by a Dodger, Mitch Jones, with 8 career games under his belt.

By: DoubleDiamond

DoubleDiamond — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:24:05 +0000

There was a time around the late 1970s/early 1980s when some AL managers put a decent hitter at #9 to string him together with the top of the order. Tony LaRussa was doing this for a while with St. Louis, with the pitcher batting 8th or maybe even 7th. In fact, I wondered if he was still doing this because of the Chris Carpenter performance the other day, but Carpenter was batting 9th. The Brewers also did this ini some games last year.

I wonder if there have been any interleague games at AL parks in which the NL's DH was someone who was normally a bench player and was inserted into the 9-hole to avoid disrupting the rest of the batting order.

By: Steve Lombardi

Steve Lombardi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:09:39 +0000

Another look at this data, by games:

http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/5WpBK

By: Steve Lombardi

Steve Lombardi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:07:16 +0000

Yup!

This was in my inbox this AM, BTW: How about that in two of the 3 games in history where both club's DH hit 9th, CC was the loser and didn't make it through the 3rd either time?

How'bout that!

By: Jgeller

Jgeller — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:52:35 +0000

not only did Molina bat 9th in that game. So did the Rays DH Fernando Perez.

By: Who Are Three People Who Have Never Been In My Kitchen?

Who Are Three People Who Have Never Been In My Kitchen? — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:14:53 +0000

[...] Nick Johnson did it 27 times while he was with the Yankees – which, by the way, is the major league record for most times appearing in a starting line-up, as a D.H., while batting 9th. [...]