Strand The Rod, Spoil The Game
Posted by Steve Lombardi on January 23, 2008
Here’s a fun little nugget for you today – via Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index Batting Game Finder. Since 1957, only one player in baseball has had a game with 5+ hits AND 3+ walks in the same contest – where he also did not score a run.
The Player: Rod Carew
The Game: May 12, 1972
Carew’s team lost this game, by a score of 4-3. Stranding Rod on base 8 times in game probably did not help the Twins cause that day.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hit into three double plays behind him, haha.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
That must have been incredibly frustrating for Carew. He should have just stolen home.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I noticed that Blyleven got the loss to... man that guy was unlucky.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Inside the box score..... I do find it ironic that the game ended with Rod in the on-deck circle. Danny Thompson went 0-10 that day, which would end up costing him 5 points on his average for the YEAR! Danny pulls the big donut and yet he scored a run! Look at all the IW's that day!
Fun Stuff
Help me gang to get Sean to put a random box score application up!
January 25th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Okay. Looking at Carew's stats I saw that he twice hit 100 points over the lgBA. So the obvious question is...how unusual is that? Well Cobb did it 12 times (11 in a row).
The highest differences came pre-liveball (except for Rajah):
*Fred Dunlap +.165 (1884)
*Ross Barnes +.149 (1876)
*Tip O'Neill +.142 (1887)
*Ty Cobb +.140 (1912)
*Nap Lajoie +.137 (1901)
*Rogers Hornsby +.137 (1924)
*Ty Cobb +.133 (1911)
Here's who achieved +.100 or more since 1941:
*Ted Williams +.128 (1941)
*Rod Carew +.123 (1977)
*Tony Gwynn +.123 (1994)
*George Brett +.121 (1980)
*Ted Williams +.118 (1957)
*Barry Bonds +.110 (2002)
*Ichiro Suzuki +.105 (2004)
*Rod Carew +.105 (1970)
*Mickey Mantle +.104 (1957)
*Wade Boggs +.101 (1988)
*Rod Carew +.101 (1974)
*Jeff Bagwell +.100 (1994)
*Mike Piazza +.100 (1997)
I did this all by hand during a 2 AM insomniac stupor. So I may have made mistakes or omissions.
Is there a way to do this using PI? How about the highest lifetime differences?
January 25th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Oops. I see that Carew did it three times.