In a shocking bit of frivolity, this game between Boston and Baltimore a couple of weeks ago featured opposing pitchers whose names sound the same but are spelled differently.

The starter for the Red Sox was Jon Lester, who has overcome off-season cancer to pitch again in the majors this year. Daniel Cabrera started for the Orioles, but was relieved by Jon Leicester, whose last name is pronounced like "Lester." (Those of you familiar with Leicester Square in London will be familiar with its pronunciation.)

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other two baseball players with exact homophonic names (except those that are actually spelled the same, such as Chris Young and Chris Young,) much less two players pitching for opposing sides in the same game.

But surely you readers out there can think of some other examples? Please comment.

When this link updates tomorrow, you'll see that the Yankees having just used 10 pitchers in a game is a franchise record. Oddly enough, even just 9 would have been the record.

Previous high of 8:

  Cnt Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt  IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str IR IS  BF  AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk **Ptchrs**   ERA
+----+-------------+---+----+-------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+----------+------+
    1 2007-09-21    NYY  TOR L  4-5  14   10  5  4  3 13  2 212 142  0  0  55  51  1  0   0   1  0  0   1  1  0  0        8     2.57
    2 2007-04-14    NYY  OAK W  4-3  13    7  3  0  4  5  0 197 120  2  0  52  47  2  0   0   0  0  1   1  1  0  0        8     0.00
    3 2005-09-27    NYY  BAL L  9-17  8   14 17 17  9  5  3 222 126  8  4  48  37  4  0   0   1  0  1   0  1  0  1        8    19.12
    4 1996-09-21    NYY  BOS W 12-11 10   14 11 11  6  6  1 178 105  8  2  51  41  6  1   2   3  1  0   2  3  0  0        8     9.90
    5 1970-08-09(2) NYY  BAL L  9-12 11   15 12 11  4  9  3          3  2  52  47  3  0   0   0  1  0   1  0  0  0        8     9.00

All but one were in extra innings, which is understandable.

Josh Beckett just became the first pitcher in MLB to win 20 in 2007.  He also has 194.7 IP on the year.  How many pitchers have ended the year with at least 20 wins but under 200 IP?  Well  . . .

He might end up being the third.  Of course he's still got a start left.  All he needs is to get shelled or pull an elbow ligament.  C'mon, Josh!  Do it for history!  Wrench that shoulder!

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about the trade between Minnesota and Philadelphia that saw them swap Eric Milton for Carlos Silva and Nick Punto. That was a pretty bad trade for Philly, and I added that Punto has been an effective player for the Twins. I might have spoken to soon on that, though. While he had a pretty good season in 2006, his numbers this year are verging on historically terrible.

Here are the seasons with the lowest slugging percentage in the last 20 years for players with at least 450 at bats:

 Cnt Player             **SLG**   AB Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Alfredo Griffin      .254   461 1990  32 LAD NL 141 502  38  97 11  3  1  35  29  11  65   2   6   4   5   6  3  .210  .258  .512 *6
    2 Billy Ripken         .258   512 1988  23 BAL AL 150 559  52 106 18  1  2  34  33   0  63   5   6   3  14   8  2  .207  .260  .518 *4/5
    3 Felix Fermin         .260   484 1989  25 CLE AL 156 562  50 115  9  1  0  21  41   0  27   4  32   1  15   6  4  .238  .302  .562 *6/4
    4 Nick Punto           .269   450 2007  29 MIN AL 143 512  51  95 17  3  1  23  54   1  81   0   5   3   7  16  6  .211  .294  .563 *564
    5 Jose Lind            .269   468 1992  28 PIT NL 135 506  38 110 14  1  0  39  26  12  29   1   7   4  14   3  1  .235  .275  .544 *4
    6 Gerald Young         .276   533 1989  24 HOU NL 146 620  71 124 17  3  0  38  74   4  60   2   6   5   7  34 25  .233  .326  .602 *8
    7 Gary Pettis          .277   458 1988  30 DET AL 129 512  65  96 14  4  3  36  47   0  85   1   6   0   3  44 10  .210  .285  .562 *8
    8 Jose Uribe           .280   453 1989  30 SFG NL 151 497  34 100 12  6  1  30  34  12  74   0   6   4   7   6  6  .221  .273  .553 *6
    9 Jose Lind            .289   578 1989  25 PIT NL 153 637  52 134 21  3  2  48  39   7  64   2  13   5  13  15  1  .232  .280  .569 *4
   10 Omar Vizquel         .291   491 2007  40 SFG NL 137 551  49 116 17  2  2  41  42   6  48   1  14   3  12  14  6  .236  .296  .587 *6
   11 Brad Ausmus          .291   450 2003  34 HOU NL 143 509  43 103 12  2  4  47  46   1  66   4   4   5   8   5  3  .229  .303  .594 *2
   12 Rafael Santana       .294   480 1988  30 NYY AL 148 521  50 115 12  1  4  38  33   0  61   1   5   2  17   1  2  .240  .289  .583 *6
   13 Mike Caruso          .297   529 1999  22 CHW AL 136 564  60 132 11  4  2  35  20   0  36   3  11   1   6  12 14  .250  .280  .577 *6
   14 Jody Reed            .297   495 1996  33 SDP NL 146 568  45 121 20  0  2  49  59   8  53   3   5   6  15   2  5  .244  .325  .622 *4
   15 Darren Lewis         .297   472 1995  27 TOT NL 132 527  66 118 13  3  1  24  34   0  57   8  12   1   9  32 18  .250  .311  .608 *8
   16 Eric Yelding         .297   511 1990  25 HOU NL 142 559  69 130  9  5  1  28  39   1  87   0   4   5  11  64 25  .254  .305  .602 *8674/95
   17 Delino DeShields     .298   581 1996  27 LAD NL 154 642  75 130 12  8  5  41  53   7 124   1   2   5  12  48 11  .224  .288  .586 *4
   18 Omar Vizquel         .298   560 1993  26 SEA AL 158 630  68 143 14  2  2  31  50   2  71   4  13   3   7  12 14  .255  .319  .617 *6
   19 Rey Ordonez          .299   505 1998  26 NYM NL 153 548  46 124 20  2  1  42  23   7  60   1  15   4  11   3  6  .246  .278  .577 *6
   20 Brian Hunter         .301   539 1999  28 TOT AL 139 589  79 125 13  6  4  34  37   0  91   2   4   7   8  44  8  .232  .280  .581 *78

Punto comes in at #4, without much chance of moving any higher on this list given how little of the season remains. His .563 OPS is also remarkably low (8th lowest for the same search criteria) and his OPS+ is just 52.

Note that another 2007 season made the list, that of Omar Vizquel. He made #18 in 1993 as well. When Vizquel first came up with Seattle, he had the reputation of being all-field and no-hit, which is proven out by the fact that he posted 4 seasons in his first 5 with an OPS+ under 70. As recently as 2002, he had a league-average OPS, and until this year stayed fairly steady with an average of about 87 OPS+.

Random note of interest: After the 1993 season, Vizquel was traded in part for #3 on this list, Felix Fermin.

As a general baseball fan, I'd really like to see Kansas City become a competitive team once again. That region is great for baseball, and a lot of great bits of MLB history have happened there.

I'm thoroughly encouraged by Kansas City's pitching staff.

First of all, everybody laughed when KC picked up Gil Meche. Well, he's got an ERA+ of 129, has pitched 202 innings, and has put together one of the most solid seasons for a Royals starting pitcher in a long time. Brian Bannister (who I didn't know until just now is the son of Floyd Bannister) has been equally solid, and together they make a great 1-2 punch.

Now, add that Zack Greinke made his best all-time career start last night, and he might be back on track to becoming another solid starter.

KC's relief pitching has also been good. As of today, here are the splits for relief pitching in the American League. Altogether they've got the 6th best AL ERA and allowed the 3rd-fewest walks with the 2nd-most strikeouts.

My feeling is that solid pitching is a lot more important than hitting, because it's significantly easier to either develop (from within) or attract (as free agents) good hitting, especially with a good young pitching staff. Ultimately they'll need both to be successful, but I think they're pretty close to having the more difficult one nailed.

This comes at the request of a reader.

When has a pitcher: 1) had an above average ERA, 2) lost over two-thirds of his decisions, while 3) working as a starting pitcher.

Sort for guys with an ERA+ of 100 or better, with winning percentages .333 or lower, while starting at least 20 games.

I'll sort by name so you can find guys who got screwed more than once.

It's happened 136, so about once every year.

Guys who got screwed more an once: Masato Yoshii, Tully Sparks, Rollie Naylor, Bill Hill, Pink Hawley, Ned Garvin, and George Bell.  Yoshii's the only guy to have this happen to him twice in the last 85 years.

For a more extreme version, here's guys with losing records with ERA+s of 150 or better.  Many of them, especially the older ones, gave up a disproportionately large number of unearned runs.

In my travels as a baseball fan, I have come across just one pitcher in history who pitched at least one inning and recorded all of his outs by strikeout. Can you name him?

I was reminded of this when someone mentioned how Kevin Seitzer recorded one out as a pitcher and struck out Carlos Martinez.

If you have no clue, try using the PI Pitching Season Finder.

Player and Team Gamelogs Video Tutorial - Baseball-Reference.com

I just put the finishing touches on an 8-minute video highlighting all of the features we've packed into the gamelogs for players and teams, batting and pitching.  I hope you'll agree with me that we have the best gamelogs in the business.  And if you don't, please tell me what I can do to improve them.

The voice is yours truly.  Not much of a future in radio, and the video capture and editing is done using Camtasia which is a fantastic tool for creating video screen captures and demo videos.  Really top notch.

We also have a tutorial for the box scores in the main video area.  Next up is splits and then the various finder tools.

Just one pitcher in history has 2 seasons with at least 50 IP and a WHIP under 0.8, but another one has a chance to do it this year.

Can you name these two pitchers? Click through for the answers. Read the rest of this entry »

Since I picked on Joe Morgan a bit in my last post, I thought I'd mention that I think he had two of the greatest all-around seasons in baseball history.

Here is the complete list of all seasons where a player had at least 90 RBI, 100 BB, 60 SB, and 10 HR:

  Cnt Player            Year  SB RBI  BB HR Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+----+---+---+---+--+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Joe Morgan        1976  60 111 114 27  32 CIN NL 141 599 472 113 151 30  5   8  41   1   0  12   2  9  .320  .444  .576 1.020 *4
    2 Joe Morgan        1975  67  94 132 17  31 CIN NL 146 639 498 107 163 27  6   3  52   3   0   6   3 10  .327  .466  .508  .974 *4

That's it, folks. Fittingly, Morgan was MVP both years, and the Big Red Machine won the World Series both years as well.

What's your opinion on the best all-around seasons of all time? Post it below in the comments.