If I were to say to you, "Name five Yankees pitchers, since 1973, to string together 10 or more starts in a row where they pitched a 'quality start,'” what would your answer be?

Some would say  Ron Guidry or Andy Pettitte.  Others might add Mike Mussina, David Cone and/or Roger Clemens.  Heck, some might suggest Tommy John, El Duque Hernandez or Jimmy Key.  Some might even say Doc Medich, Mel Stottlemyre or Ed Figueroa.

Hideki Irabu anyone?

It’s true.  Using the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index Pitching Streak Finder, and setting it for “Longest Streak with IPouts>=6, ER<=3 From 1973 to 2007, Playing for NYY” shows the five pitchers in question to be:

Ron Guidry         (15 games in a row)  [1978-04-08  to 1978-06-22]   
David Cone         (13 games in a row)  [1997-04-21  to 1997-06-23]  
Mike Mussina      (12 games in a row)  [2006-04-04  to 2006-05-31]   
Hideki Irabu       (10 games in a row)  [1998-04-19  to 1998-06-16]  
Phil Niekro        (10 games in a row)  [1984-04-04  to 1984-05-24]  

Niekro is a surprise – and a good trick answer.  But, Irabu is a shocker.  I never would have guessed at that one.       

As promised, here's the list of most career wins (since 1957) as a starter with zero strikeouts:

 Tommy John           18 Ind. Games
 Bob Forsch           14 Ind. Games
 Mike Caldwell        14 Ind. Games
 Jim Barr             12 Ind. Games
 Doyle Alexander      12 Ind. Games
 Tom Glavine          10 Ind. Games
 Kirk Rueter           9 Ind. Games
 Al Fitzmorris         9 Ind. Games

Tommy John had an amazing total of 18 such games, and if you click on the "Ind. Games" link next to his total, you'll see that they were spread over his entire career, from 1966 to 1987. Unsurprisingly, he didn't allow too many hits or walks in these games either. In fact, he didn't walk more than 3 in any of those games, and walked none or one 11 times.

Notice something else interesting? The top 4 guys (John, Forsch, Caldwell, Barr) were all well known for having very low walk rates. They all finished in the top 10 in fewest walks per 9 innings several times in their career. Even the next several guys did it at least a couple of times. A little bit further down the list, we see names like Tewksbury and Reuss, guys well known for low walk rates.

The Yankees recently had a 9-game winning streak this season - from June 5th through June 14th.  I was curious as to how many times a "Joe Torre Yankees" team won more games in a row than nine?  Using the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index Team Pitching Streak Finder, and setting it for "Longest Streak with W=1 From 1996 to 2007, Playing for NYY" shows me that the Yankees had two 10-game winning streaks under Joe Torre:

June 30, 1998 to July 12, 1998 - and
May 7, 2005 to May 17, 2005

In that 1998 streak, the team ERA was 1.98 - and their ERA was 2.60 in that 2005 streak.

And, the 9-game winning streak this year?

The Yankees team ERA was 2.63

The 2007 Yankees could have made it to 10-in-a-row...but they lost that "10th game" to the Mets, by a score of 2-0.

Just goes to show, you need great pitching to go on a long winning streak...still, if you don't score any runs at all one day, you're not going to win that game. 

If the Yankees had beaten the Mets that day, we'd be looking at a 12-game winning streak (now) for the Yankees - a new record under Torre (for them).

That speaks to what this Yankees team is capable of doing...if they play well.

So Chone Figgins had six hits last night against the Astros.

His line: 6 at bats, 6 hits, 1 run, 3 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K.

Thanks to PI's batting game finder (setting H greater than or equal to 6, and sorting by hits), we can look at this query find out a few things about six (or seven)-hit games:

• Only three men have ever hit seven hits in a game -- (edit: spelling) Rennie Stennett, Cesar Gutierrez and Rocky Colavito.
• Figgins' game was the first instance of six hits since 2004, when six men did it: Raul Ibanez, Joe Randa, Omar Vizquel, Carlos Pena, Alfonso Soriano, Frank Catalanotto. Pena, Soriano and Catalanotto all did it in a month (May 2004). Soriano and Catalanotto did it within a week of each other (the 8th and 1st of May, respectively).
• Figgins is the eleventh man to do it since 2000.
• Kirby Puckett is the only man who has had a six-hit game twice -- once in 1987, once in 1991.
• Of these games, the most RBI in a game is seven, which was done twice -- once by Kevin Seitzer in 1987, once by Shawn Green in 2002. The least RBI in these games is zero, which has happened a remarkable seven times (including one of Puckett's games). Kevin Reimer's game in 1993 was the last time in history anybody has had six or more hits with no RBI.

38pitches got knocked around pretty nicely last night, giving up 6 ER on 10 hits in just 4.1 innings.

Amazingly, he had zero strikeouts in this start.

Turns out he's had 3 such games, as summarized here:

 Cnt Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GmSc

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

    1 2007-06-18    BOS @ATL L  4-9  GS-5  ,L   4.1 10  6  6  2  0  1  81  50   17
    2 1993-07-01    PHI @STL L  5-14 GS-3  ,L   2.2 11 11  7  1  0  0  72  47   -1
    3 1988-10-02    BAL @TOR L  3-9  GS-2  ,L   2    4  7  5  1  0  0  54  34   23

I remember that game in 1993. The Phillies were 52-25 at the time, on their way to their most recent post-season appearance.

I don't have a good feel for whether 3 no-strikeout starts is a lot or a little, so I did a similar search for games for other active strikeout leaders:

Rank Player Zero K Games
+------+-----------+--------------
1 Clemens 9
2 Johnson 6
3 Maddux 16*
4 Schilling 3
5 Pedro 1
6 Smoltz 4
7 Mussina 10*
8 Glavine 32*

*All of these plays won at least a couple of these starts with no strikeouts. Glavine, for example, won 10 of these starts.

So overall, Schilling is doing fine avoiding such games.

I'll come back at some point in the future with career leaders for games won with zero strikeouts.

OK, stat geeks. Who is the only pitcher since 1980 to have a WHIP under 1.00 and a W/L% under .500, with a minimum of 20 decisions?

You Milwaukee Brewer fans out there will undoubtedly remember immediately that it was Ben Sheets in 2004.

Holy cow, has a pitcher ever had worse luck over the course of a season? First check out his basic numbers for 2004:

34 games and starts
237.0 IP
201 hits allowed
32 BBs / 264 Ks
2.70 ERA, compared to 4.14 league ERA

and yet, W/L record of only 12 W and 14 L.

How did this happen? Well, Sheets' 2004 game log tells most of the story. He was supported with 0, 1, or 2 runs in 14 starts, and he went 1-12 in those 14 games. In his only two losses where the Brew Crew scored more than 2 runs, they lost the games 5-4 and 8-3.

Overall, the Brewers were terrible that year, finishing 67-94, with the third-fewest runs scored in the league. Still, Sheets deserved much better.

Here's a cool thing you can do with the Play Index: create the all-time leaderboard in just about any stat you want for any period of years you want.  For example, here's a list of the all-time home run leaders at the time the liveball came into play.

It's easy: just go to PI's Batting Season Finder, in the top yellow bar click on: Find Totals for Matching Seasons or Careers , choose the years you're looking for, the stat, and sort.

It can be for just about anything.  It can be something as big as career homers, or as odd as most HBP in the 1890s. It all works.

The Red Sox scored a rare 1-0 win over the Giants yesterday, plus the Padres knocked off the Cubs by the same score. I used the PI to search for all 1-0 victories. (In case you're curious how I did that, I used Team Batting Game Finder, set for only games that were won, where runs scored by the team was exactly 1.)

As you might expect, the rate of such victories is dwindling. In the late 1960s (1966 to 1969) there were 61 such games in an average year. By the late 1970s, that figure declined to 47 games per year. In the late 1980s, it was level at an average of 48, but by the late 1990s it slipped to just 28 games won by a score of 1-0 per year.

(Click below for further comments and analysis)

In the Yankees first 66 games this season, Derek Jeter has made 193 outs as a batter.   Using the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index Batting Event Finder for Jeter, we can see that an opponent's third baseman was involved in just 17 of those 193 outs. 

Clearly, for the Yankees Captain, when it comes to hitting the ball towards third, the answer is "I don't know."

This begs the question:  Should teams play their 3B off the line when Jeter is up?  But, the answer, of course, is "No" - because of Jeter's ability to bunt for hits.

For all those players who moan about getting the shift treatment, there's a lesson here...a little bunt now and again can take that shift away in a hurry.

How many pitchers have made it halfway to 300 by their 30th birthday?  Using B-ref's PI you can get an idea.  Go to the Pitching Season Finder, and set the following guidelines:

- In the top yellow bar, click off on this option: Find Totals for Matching Seasons or Careers

- In the left column, where it gives you an age option, choice "Any" as your start, and "29" as the finish.  This isn't perfect, but if you can run it once at 29 wins, and again at 30, and check the gamelogs here or at retrosheet (for pre-1957 it would have to be at retrosheet) to see when the guys on the border won #150.

- In the right column, set for Wins, equal to or more than 150 wins.

These are the liveballers who won 150 before their age 30 season.   If you check the gamelogs, you'll see Clemens won his 150th shortly after his 30th birthday.  The rest all won 150 while in their 20s.  The other 16 make up the complete list of liveballers who won 150 before turning 30.  Only one made it to 300.  Hell, they combined for four 20 win seasons after turning 30 (3 by Palmer, one by Feller).  Winning that many games that young isn't good for the arm.

Here's the winningest liveball pitchers by the end of their age 30 season.