Banging Out The Hits - Hardcastle Style In The A.L.
The Yankees had 19 hits in their game last night against the Indians. This made me wonder - what’s the most times that an American League team had 19+ hits in a season? Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index Game Finder, the answer is simple. All you have to do is set the controls for “From 1957 to 2007, Playing in the AL, (requiring H>=19), sorted by greatest Performances matching selected criteria in a single game” and then you can see that, since 1957, the only teams to have 19+ hits in a game, during a season, 6 or more times, are:
SEA 1996 8 Ind. Games
NYY 1996 6 Ind. Games
KCR 1982 6 Ind. Games
CLE 1995 6 Ind. Games
The 1982 Royals are in there? Never would have guessed that one. Although, that was a 90-win team for Dick Howser that season.
Here are the game where the M’s set their A.L. post-1956 mark in 1996:
Cnt Date Tm Opp GmReslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS LOB Batrs
+----+-------------+---+----+-------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+-----+
1 1996-04-30 SEA @TEX W 8-0 49 44 8 19 6 0 1 8 3 1 6 0 1 1 2 0 0 1 14 9
2 1996-05-15 SEA @NYY W 10-5 48 43 10 19 4 0 1 10 5 0 7 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 11 10
3 1996-05-17 SEA @BAL L 13-14 53 47 13 21 3 0 2 12 5 0 4 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 13 13
4 1996-05-21 SEA @BOS W 13-7 48 44 13 19 6 0 2 13 4 0 6 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 8 9
5 1996-06-11 SEA @MIN W 18-8 55 50 18 24 7 0 1 16 3 0 7 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 10 10
6 1996-06-28 SEA TEX W 19-8 53 46 19 22 3 2 3 17 6 0 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 11
7 1996-07-18 SEA @CAL W 15-3 54 46 15 21 6 0 3 15 7 0 9 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 12 14
8 1996-08-18 SEA @NYY W 13-12 62 53 13 19 4 0 3 13 8 2 15 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 13 11
And, if you don’t get the Hardcastle reference, click here. Make sense now?