Once, I had the pleasure of listening to Brooks Robinson talk about Opening Day homers. (I was sitting about 6 feet away from him at a baseball card show.)

Anyway, Brooksy said he loved hitting on opening day, and it shows.

Here are the career leaders for most opening day games with at least one homer:

                   Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Frank Robinson        8 Ind. Games
 Dave Winfield         6 Ind. Games
 Ken Griffey           6 Ind. Games
 Gary Carter           6 Ind. Games
 Carl Yastrzemski      5 Ind. Games
 Mike Schmidt          5 Ind. Games
 Scott Rolen           5 Ind. Games
 Brooks Robinson       5 Ind. Games
 Willie Mays           5 Ind. Games
 Tino Martinez         5 Ind. Games
 Todd Hundley          5 Ind. Games
 Richie Hebner         5 Ind. Games
 Dwight Evans          5 Ind. Games
 Orlando Cepeda        5 Ind. Games
 Barry Bonds           5 Ind. Games                

One active player on there, Scott Rolen, could still move up. He's playing for Toronto, although I'm not sure if he's playing today (didn't he hurt his finger?)

On a totally separate note, it's going to be really weird to see Rolen in a blue uniform. He's played his entire career in red uniforms until this point.

Opening Day II is sort-of finally here, so here are some Opening Day stats courtesy of the PI Game Finder.

This is the final Tim Kurkjian note from his recent book. Thanks to a reader out there who pointed out that I misspelled his name in several posts--those have now been fixed.

TK noted that Rob Deer had 17 games with 4 or more strikeouts. Here are the career leaders:

                   Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Reggie Jackson       23 Ind. Games
 Bo Jackson           19 Ind. Games
 Sammy Sosa           17 Ind. Games
 Rob Deer             17 Ind. Games
 Jose Canseco         16 Ind. Games
 Jim Thome            15 Ind. Games
 Dave Kingman         15 Ind. Games
 Andres Galarraga     15 Ind. Games
 Dick Allen           15 Ind. Games
 Reggie Sanders       14 Ind. Games
 Ray Lankford         14 Ind. Games
 Bobby Bonds          14 Ind. Games
 Cory Snyder          13 Ind. Games
 Jay Buhner           13 Ind. Games
 Lance Parrish        12 Ind. Games
 Pete Incaviglia      12 Ind. Games
 Tony Clark           12 Ind. Games

Reggie Jackson had a stranglehold on this record at one point, but Sosa might catch him if he can find a team to play for. Thome and Reggie Sanders might have a shot too.

David's idea from yesterday got me to wondering who hit the most homers in their final major-league season. Do you know? Click through.

I was surprised that this happened even once, but it's happened 3 times since 1956.  There have been 3 pitchers who have gone 2 consecutive games, both starts, without a retiring a batter.

David in Toledo came up with this interesting list:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/7MGQ

Of course, the new addition he refers to is one Barry Lamar Bonds.

First of all, note that boxscores on B-R.com now go back to 1956 (instead of 1957) thanks to some hard work by Sean and his team.

And now, here are all the game starts that last just 1 pitch:

  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 Wade Miller       2001-08-05    HOU  MON W  4-1  GS-1       0.1  0  0  0  0  0  0   1   1   51        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00 

    2 Pedro Astacio     2000-09-06    COL  CHC L  5-8  GS-0       0    1  1  1  0  0  0   1   1   44        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   inf  

    3 Chris Bosio       1993-06-26    SEA @CHW L  4-7  GS-1       0.1  0  0  0  0  0  0   1   1   51        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00 

    4 Dennis Martinez   1990-09-09    MON @PIT W  9-5  GS-1       0.1  0  0  0  0  0  0   1   1   51        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.00 

    5 Al Leiter         1988-05-31    NYY @OAK W  5-0  GS-1       0    1  0  0  0  0  0   1   1   48        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0  undef 

    6 Don Cardwell      1963-09-20    PIT @LAD L  0-2  GS-1       0    1  0  0  0  0  0   1   1   48        1  1  0  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0  undef 

We talked about that Astacio game recently, and Don Cardwell's name might be familiar to you because he passed away about 2 months ago. It's amazing to me that half these pitchers actually recorded an out. (It looks like 2 of them were involved in the defensive play, probably getting injured in the process.)

Kurkjian noted that in 1991, Manny Lee became the first player to strike out 100 times in a season without hitting a single homer. Nobody has done it since.

Here are the top strikeout totals with no homers:

  Cnt Player             **SO** HR Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B RBI  BB IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Manuel Lee          107    0 1991  26 TOR AL 138 485 445  41 104 18  3  29  24   0   2  10   4  11   7  2  .234  .274  .288  .562 *6
    2 Vince Coleman        98    0 1986  24 STL NL 154 670 600  94 139 13  8  29  60   0   2   3   5   4 107 14  .232  .301  .280  .581 *78
    3 Steve Jeltz          97    0 1986  27 PHI NL 145 510 439  44  96 11  4  36  65   9   1   3   2   9   6  3  .219  .320  .262  .582 *6
    4 Tim Johnson          93    0 1973  23 MIL AL 136 510 465  39  99 10  2  32  29   2   1  11   4  10   6  3  .213  .259  .243  .502 *6
    5 Gary Pettis          91    0 1991  33 TEX AL 137 343 282  37  61  7  5  19  54   0   0   6   1   4  29 13  .216  .341  .277  .618 *8
    6 Nook Logan           86    0 2007  27 WSN NL 118 350 325  39  86 18  4  21  19   1   0   5   1   9  23  5  .265  .304  .345  .649 *8
    7 Luis Castillo        85    0 1999  23 FLA NL 128 563 487  76 147 23  4  28  67   0   0   6   3   3  50 17  .302  .384  .366  .750 *4
    8 Otis Nixon           85    0 1995  36 TEX AL 139 656 589  87 174 21  2  45  58   1   0   6   3   6  50 21  .295  .357  .338  .695 *8
    9 Reggie Willits       83    0 2007  26 LAA AL 136 518 430  74 126 20  1  34  69   2   3  11   5   7  27  8  .293  .391  .344  .735 798D
   10 Marvell Wynne        81    0 1984  24 PIT NL 154 702 653  77 174 24 11  39  42   0   0   5   2   8  24 19  .266  .310  .337  .647 *8
   11 Don Kessinger        80    0 1967  24 CHC NL 145 628 580  61 134 10  7  42  33   1   4   7   4   3   6 13  .231  .275  .272  .547 *6

...I give you Luke Easter.

He's one of 11 players in the 1950s to have a season with 100+ RBI but fewer than 500 AB.

  Cnt Player            Year RBI  AB Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  R   H  2B 3B HR  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+----+---+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Rocky Colavito    1958 113 489  24 CLE AL 143 578  80 148 26  3 41  84   6  89   2   0   3  16   0  2  .303  .405  .620 1.025 *93/17
    2 Del Ennis         1957 105 490  32 STL NL 136 537  61 140 24  3 24  37   3  50   1   1   8  22   1  3  .286  .332  .494  .826 *79
    3 Vic Wertz         1956 106 481  31 CLE AL 136 568  65 127 22  0 32  75  10  87   5   0   7   8   0  0  .264  .364  .509  .873 *3
    4 Joe Adcock        1956 103 454  28 MLN NL 137 500  76 132 23  1 38  32   6  86   1  11   2  11   1  0  .291  .337  .597  .934 *3
    5 Eddie Mathews     1955 101 499  23 MLN NL 141 616 108 144 23  5 41 109  20  98   1   1   6   5   3  4  .289  .413  .601 1.014 *5
    6 Roy Campanella    1955 107 446  33 BRO NL 123 522  81 142 20  1 32  56   9  41   6   5   9  14   2  3  .318  .395  .583  .978 *2
    7 Al Rosen          1954 102 466  30 CLE AL 137 566  76 140 20  2 24  85   0  43   3   1  11  14   6  2  .300  .404  .506  .910 *53/64
    8 Eddie Mathews     1954 103 476  22 MLN NL 138 601  96 138 21  4 40 113   0  61   2   3   7   9  10  3  .290  .423  .603 1.026 *57
    9 Frank Thomas      1953 102 455  24 PIT NL 128 510  68 116 22  1 30  50   0  93   2   3   0  12   1  2  .255  .331  .505  .836 *89/7
   10 Ray Boone         1953 114 497  29 TOT AL 135 582  94 147 17  8 26  72   0  68   5   8   0   9   3  3  .296  .390  .519  .909 6
   11 Luke Easter       1951 103 486  35 CLE AL 128 532  65 131 12  5 27  37   0  71   9   0   0  14   0  1  .270  .333  .481  .814 *3
   12 Sid Gordon        1950 103 481  32 BSN NL 134 562  78 146 33  4 27  78   0  31   2   1   0  14   2  0  .304  .403  .557  .960 *75       

That's quite good company he's in.

Also, Easter cracks the top 20 in OPS+ for players whose careers were less than 500 games, minimum 500 career PAs (active players excluded, or else Ryan Howard is #2 and a bunch of others make the list.)

In other words, for a guy with a short career, he had one of the best, at least by the OPS+ metric.

So when you hear "Happy Easter", be sure to think of the late Luke Easter.

In a recent column, Howard Megdal says of Johan Santana: "The Mets .  .  .  haven’t had a pitcher of Santana’s caliber in roughly 20 years."

Let's check this against the Play Index - look at Mets starters from 1988-2007 who qualified for the ERA title.  Here are the best seasons overall.

Santana has a career ERA+ of 141.  In his last six seasons, he's had marks of: 149, 148, 182, 155, 161, and 130.  It dropped last year, if you're wondering, because he allowed more homers than normal.  Probably a fluke & Shea should reduce it further regardless.

Really, a few seasons are equal to Santana, especially Leiter's  1998, but no one can consistently bring it.  Leiter's big season was partially caused by a flukishly small number of hits allowed.  I know they had a good defense by 151 hits in nearly 200 innings just ain't normal unless you're striking out way over a batter an inning.

Saberhagen and Martinez had trouble staying healthy with the Mets.  Mike Hampton only had one season there.  David Cone was never anywhere nearly that good again for the team.  Nor was Reed.  Viola was below average his other season with the squad.

So the closest they've come to Johan Santana since Gooden flamed out is Al Leiter.  Yeah, I'd say the Mets haven't had a starter like him in all that time.

Not an especially surprising conclusion, to put it mildly, but it's fun to look this stuff up sometimes.