Ed Burns of the Star-Ledger has a piece on Derek Jeter noting that only 2 players have ever had season with as many R, RBI, SB, HR and as high a BA as Jeter had in 2006.

A quick search of the PI Batting Season Finder confirms it:

 Cnt Player             **SB**   BA  HR  R  RBI Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  H  2B 3B  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP CS  OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions

+----+-----------------+-------+-----+--+---+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+

    1 George Sisler        42    .407 19 137 122 1920  27 SLB AL 154 692 631 257 49 18  46   0  19   2  13   0   0 17  .449  .632 1.081 *3/1

    2 Kiki Cuyler          41    .357 18 144 102 1925  26 PIT NL 153 700 617 220 43 26  58   0  56  13  12   0   0 13  .423  .598 1.021 *98

    3 Derek Jeter          34    .343 14 118  97 2006  32 NYY AL 154 715 623 214 39  3  69   4 102  12   7   4  13  5  .417  .483  .900 *6/D      

Incidentally, Larry Walker (1 SB shy in 1997) and Ellis Burks (2 SB shy in 1996) just missed making the club.

The Ed Burns piece has a number of interesting factoids, and came to my attention via YanksBlog.com.

I wrote last week about Curt Schilling's start with zero strikeouts, and the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang equaled the feat over the weekend. He didn't get hit as hard as Schilling, but the Yankees did lose the game.

I started wondering how often a starter gets no strikeouts in a game. Searching the PI for just 2007 starts with no strikeouts, turns out it's happened 102 times already this year!

The leaders by innings pitched in a game with no strikeouts:

 Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    **IP**   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA

+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+--------+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+

    1 Steve Trachsel    2007-05-28    BAL @KCR W  9-1  CG 9  ,W     9      5  1  1  3  0  0 104  62   70       33 30  3  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   1.00

    2 Chris Sampson     2007-06-02    HOU  STL W  8-3  GS-8  ,W     8      6  3  3  1  0  1  90  52   57       30 27  2  0   0   0  0  2   0  0  0  0  0  0   3.38
    3 Mike Maroth       2007-05-27    DET  CLE L  3-5  GS-8  ,L     8      6  5  5  5  0  2 107  58   45       32 26  1  0   0   0  0  1   2  0  0  0  0  0   5.62

    4 Joe Kennedy       2007-05-20    OAK  SFG L  1-4  GS-8  ,L     7.1    8  3  3  1  0  2 103  62   49       31 28  1  0   0   1  1  0   1  1  0  0  0  2   3.68

    5 Adam Wainwright   2007-06-18    STL  KCR L  3-5  GS-7  ,L     7      9  5  4  1  0  1  88  58   40       33 30  1  0   0   1  1  0   1  2  0  0  0  0   5.14
    6 Steve Trachsel    2007-06-13    BAL  WSN L  6-9  GS-7         7      6  4  4  2  0  1 105  65   47       27 25  1  1   0   0  0  0   2  0  0  0  0  0   5.14
    7 Brian Bannister   2007-05-26    KCR  SEA L  1-9  GS-7  ,L     7      8  4  4  2  0  1 106  72   43       30 28  2  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   5.14
    8 Matt DeSalvo      2007-05-07    NYY  SEA L  2-3  GS-7         7      3  1  1  3  0  0  89  55   64       26 23  1  0   0   0  0  0   1  1  0  0  0  0   1.29
    9 Jon Garland       2007-04-28    CHW  LAA L  0-3  GS-7  ,L     7      5  3  3  1  0  1 102  69   54       26 25  1  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   3.86
   10 Russ Ortiz        2007-04-20    SFG  ARI W  4-2  GS-7  ,W     7      8  2  2  2  0  0  95  60   51       31 27  4  0   0   1  1  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   2.57
   11 Ramon Ortiz       2007-04-17    MIN @SEA W 11-2  GS-7  ,W     7      8  2  2  0  0  2  92  58   53       28 27  1  0   0   1  0  0   2  0  0  0  0  0   2.57
   12 Orlando Hernandez 2007-04-03    NYM @STL W  4-1  GS-7  ,W     7      5  1  1  2  0  1 104  62   61       25 22  1  0   0   1  0  0   3  1  1  1  0  0   1.29
   13 Zach Duke         2007-04-02    PIT @HOU W  4-2  GS-7         7      8  2  2  1  0  1  80  49   52       26 24  3  0   0   1  0  0   2  0  0  0  0  0   2.57

Some interesting tidbits about the whole list (not just the partial list above):

Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Mussina pitched today for the New York Yankees.  He went 5 innings in the game.  This got me thinking: How many times has Moose Mussina pitched 7+ innings in a game for the Yankees? 

Using the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index Pitching Game Finder for Mike Mussina, and setting it for "From 1991 to 2007, Playing for NYY, (requiring IP>=7)" shows that Mussina has pitched 7+ innings in a game for the Yankees the following amount of times:

2007: 1 (in 12 Games Started [GS] to date)
2006: 10 (in 32 GS)
2005: 10 (in 30 GS)
2004: 9 (in 27 GS)
2003:  21 (in 31 GS)
2002:  14 (in 33 GS)
2001: 22 (in 34 GS)

As you can see, coming into this season, at least 10 times a year (thereabouts), Moose has been good for 7+ IP in a start.

Mussina has, maybe, about 17 more starts this season - assuming that he does not miss any time.  Mike will have to go 7+ innings in around half of those 17 starts to give the Yankees his "usual" 10+ games (in a season) where he goes 7+ innings.

I don't think he's going to make it.

Some very sad news today about the passing of Rod Beck. I never heard or read a single bad thing about him, and he was certainly much too young to pass away. My heart goes out to all people struggling with substance abuse or addiction issues.

In celebration of Rod Beck's life, here are a few tidbits about his career:

Most times striking out an individual player, taken from his PI Event Finder page for strikeouts:

From his splits page, we can learn that in his career, he limited opposing batters to a .243 BA, .292 OBP, and a .391 SLG, which are some pretty impressive numbers. But he was really money in the clutch. For example, with RISP and 2 outs, those numbers fall to .195 / .286 / .313.

Beck's career apex was 1993 to 1998, and he led all of baseball in saves for that period:

                   Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Rod Beck            232 Ind. Games
 Randy Myers         216 Ind. Games
 John Wetteland      215 Ind. Games
 Trevor Hoffman      188 Ind. Games
 Roberto Hernandez   179 Ind. Games
 Jeff Montgomery     177 Ind. Games
 John Franco         171 Ind. Games
 Rick Aguilera       153 Ind. Games
 Dennis Eckersley    151 Ind. Games
 Robb Nen            148 Ind. Games

For those for of us who never knew Mr. Beck personally, let's at least remember him as this much: one of the dominant closers of the 1990s.

John Smoltz made waves recently by calling out Chipper Jones for not playing with an injury. As the linked AP article points out, it came on the heels of the Braves being shut out for the third straight game, which last happened to them in 1988.

Well that's a PI Team Streak Finder search crying out for attention, isn't it?

Turns out that since 1988, one team has a longer streak:

 Team    StreakStart  Streak End Games   Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+-----------

 CHC      1992-04-27  1992-05-01     4   ATL,CIN                             

 ATL      2007-06-19  2007-06-22     3   BOS,DET
 KCR      2004-07-05  2004-07-07     3   MIN
 MON      2004-04-13  2004-04-15     3   FLA
 DET      1995-09-29  1995-10-01     3   BAL
 NYM      1992-07-25  1992-07-27     3   SDP,PHI
 SFG      1992-06-23  1992-06-25     3   ATL,SDP
 CLE      1991-06-12  1991-06-14     3   TOR,MIN
 TOR      1990-08-24  1990-08-26     3   BOS
 CIN      1989-04-18  1989-04-21     3   LAD,HOU
 ATL      1988-04-20  1988-04-22     3   HOU,CIN

Wow, those Cubs sure have set a lot of bad records, haven 't they?

But the Braves are the only team since 1988 to have been shut out 3 times in a row twice, once in 1988 and once in 2007. But they had a few good years in between.

We all are well aware that pitching complete games has become much rarer than it used to be. I was reminded of this again during an excellent interview with Denny McLain recently conducted by Dale Arnold and Michael Holley on WEEI in Boston (audio available here.) For example, in his 31-win season, McLain started 41 games and finished 23 of them.

These days, when a pitcher throws back-to-back CGs, it's big news. That point can be brought home by the following search's using the PIT Pitching Streak finder.

First, most consecutive complete games pitched in the last 10 full season (1997-2006):

Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of the Big Z's recent great play -- how does his 12-K performance yesterday against the White Sox stack up with his career achievements?

First go to the PI Main page, type in "Carlos Zambrano" where it says:

Enter a player name and go to the PI tool.

Then click off Pitching Game Finder, and click on the grey "Go to page" box.  There, you can search for games where Big Z has struck out a ton.

Here's a list of every game he's struck out at least 10 in.

I've loved Jayson Stark ever since he wrote for the Philadelphia Enquirer, and his contributions to ESPN and ESPN.com are among the best. His Rumblings & Grumblings column is always interesting.

Today I'm using the PI to look at one of his comments in the most recent edition of Rumblings & Grumblings.

Stark said this about Matt Cain:

"We couldn't find a single pitcher in the expansion era who had an ERA as good as Cain's (3.15), or a hits-per-nine-IP rate as good as Cain's (7.02 per nine IP) who wound up a season with a winning percentage as lousy as his is now (.222)"

So I did a PI Pitching Season Finder with the following restrictions: 1961-present, pitchers qualified for the ERA title, ERA of 3.15 or less, ranked by lowest W-L%:

  Cnt Player             W-L%   ERA  Year Age Tm
+----+-----------------+-----+------+----+---+---+
    1 John Dopson        .214   3.04 1988  24 MON
    2 Jim Abbott         .318   2.77 1992  24 CAL
    3 Nolan Ryan         .333   2.76 1987  40 HOU
    4 Sammy Stewart      .333   2.32 1981  26 BAL
    5 Gary Ross          .333   3.00 1976  28 CAL 

It would appear that Stark missed John Dopson, who had 26 games and starts for the 1988 Montreal Expos, finishing 3-11 (.214%) with an ERA of 3.04. Still, he's the only one Stark missed, as the next worst season by Jim Abbott saw a lofty .318 W-L%.

Maybe Jayson should become a B-R PI subscriber?

Obviously there's a lot of controversy over Sammy Sosa's career, as he is one of the prime suspects of steroid use. Personally, I have no idea whether he used steroids, and I'd say that even if he did, he's still shown a lot of talent on the baseball field. (Incidentally, the same goes for Barry Bonds, but maybe not for Mark McGwire, who didn't have much going for him beyond home runs.)

Anyway, let's leave the steroid debate for other forums. Here, noting Sosa's 600th career HR, are some tidbits about his career using the B-R PI:

For 60-HR seasons, here are all the players with at least 1 stolen base:

 Cnt Player             **SB** HR Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Sammy Sosa           18   66 1998  29 CHC NL 159 722 643 134 198 20  0 158  73  14 171   1   0   5  20  9  .308  .377  .647 1.024 *9/8
    2 Barry Bonds          13   73 2001  36 SFG NL 153 664 476 129 156 32  2 137 177  35  93   9   0   2   5  3  .328  .515  .863 1.378 *7/D
    3 Sammy Sosa            7   63 1999  30 CHC NL 162 712 625 114 180 24  2 141  78   8 171   3   0   6  17  8  .288  .367  .635 1.002 *98
    4 Babe Ruth             7   60 1927  32 NYY AL 151 691 540 158 192 29  8 164 137   0  89   0  14   0   0  6  .356  .486  .772 1.258 *97
    5 Mark McGwire          1   70 1998  34 STL NL 155 681 509 130 152 21  0 147 162  28 155   6   0   4   8  0  .299  .470  .752 1.222 *3   

Sosa had one other 60-HR season(maybe two more if he keeps up his 2007 pace), but had no stolen bases that year.

And how about number of seasons with at least 50 HR, 100 RBI, and 100 runs scored?

 Sammy Sosa        1998 2001 29-32       4 Ind. Seasons
 Babe Ruth         1920 1928 25-33       4 Ind. Seasons
 Mark McGwire      1996 1999 32-35       3 Ind. Seasons
 Alex Rodriguez    2001 2002 25-26       2 Ind. Seasons
 Ken Griffey       1997 1998 27-28       2 Ind. Seasons
 Mickey Mantle     1956 1961 24-29       2 Ind. Seasons
 Willie Mays       1955 1965 24-34       2 Ind. Seasons
 Ralph Kiner       1947 1949 24-26       2 Ind. Seasons
 Jimmie Foxx       1932 1938 24-30       2 Ind. Seasons  

To be tied with Babe Ruth for just about anything is pretty amazing.

The Yankees, in the last two days, have lost 2 games in a row at Coors Field - where New York scored just one run in both losses.

Using the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index Team Batting Streak Finder, and setting it for “Longest Streak with L=1, R=1 From 1957 to 2007, Against COL, On the Road” shows this has only happened once before:  When the Diamondbacks lost both games of a double-header in Colorado on September 23, 2004.

So, other than the Yankees now, no team has ever lost two games in a row played over two days, playing the Rockies on the road, where they scored exactly one run in each loss.

Now, last year, Oakland was shutout at Coors - two games in a row - from June 19th-20th.  And, in 2002, the Pirates were shoutout while visiting the Rockies - two times in a row - on April 30th-May 1st.

So, you have to include them here too - in terms of having their bats go south for two games in a row while playing in Colorado.

Therefore, with their poor results over the past two days, the Yankees joined just three other teams to score that poorly for two games in a row while playing the Rockies at their home park.

How does that happen when you have Jeter, Abreu, A-Rod, Matsui, Posada and Cano on your team?  Go figure.