Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 14, 2007
Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder, we can compare the stats of these two 26-year old pitchers this season (to date):
Cnt Player Year IP ERA+ SO Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB ERA HR BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ Pit Str
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+---+---+---+--+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+---+---+---+---+------+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
1 Daisuke Matsuzaka 2007 184.1 103 179 26 BOS AL 29 29 1 0 0 14 12 .538 0 175 91 91 70 4.44 23 788 701 38 2 1 12 3 2 14 16 7 0 0 4 .250 .327 .408 .735 91 3125 1997
2 Carlos Zambrano 2007 190 107 163 26 CHC NL 30 30 1 0 0 15 12 .556 0 167 95 90 92 4.26 21 821 708 33 4 3 13 5 3 17 3 2 1 0 3 .236 .333 .383 .716 87 3282 2009
Pretty close to each other, huh? It will be interesting to see how both their careers move forward after this season.
Posted in Season Finders | Comments Off on Carlos Zambrano & Daisuke Matsuzaka
Posted by Sky on September 13, 2007
Motivated by Mike Cameron's stellar five strikeout performance last night, here's the list of the only players to whiff six times in one game (since 1947, naturally):
Cnt Player Date Tm Opp GmReslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB **SO** HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+------+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+
1 Geoff Jenkins 2004-06-08 MIL @ANA W 1-0 7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3rd LF
2 Alex Gonzalez 1998-09-09 TOR CLE L 3-6 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9th SS
3 Sam Horn 1991-07-17 BAL @KCR L 8-9 8 7 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4th DH
4 Cecil Cooper 1974-06-14 BOS @CAL L 3-4 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1st 1B
5 Billy Cowan 1971-07-09 CAL @OAK L 0-1 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4th LF
6 Rick Reichardt 1966-05-31 CAL CLE L 5-7 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3rd LF
Alex Gonzalez is the only one to do it in just six plate appearances and Sam Horn is the only one to also have a hit in the game.
Has anyone been so skilled as to have multiple five-strikeout games? Yes:
Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
Sammy Sosa 4 Ind. Games
Ray Lankford 3 Ind. Games
Jim Thome 2 Ind. Games
Ron Swoboda 2 Ind. Games
Richie Sexson 2 Ind. Games
George Scott 2 Ind. Games
Deron Johnson 2 Ind. Games
Dick Allen 2 Ind. Games
How about the career leaders for four-strikeout games:
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
Gorman Thomas 11 Ind. Games
Frank Howard 11 Ind. Games
Jose Hernandez 11 Ind. Games
Bo Jackson's the man considering how short his career was.
Posted in Game Finders | 3 Comments »
Posted by Andy on September 13, 2007
These data are through Tuesday's games.
Each team's total wins in games with 5 or fewer hits:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
SDP 2007 8 Ind. Games
TOR 2007 7 Ind. Games
NYM 2007 7 Ind. Games
MIN 2007 5 Ind. Games
CLE 2007 5 Ind. Games
ARI 2007 5 Ind. Games
WSN 2007 4 Ind. Games
MIL 2007 4 Ind. Games
LAA 2007 4 Ind. Games
KCR 2007 4 Ind. Games
DET 2007 4 Ind. Games
COL 2007 4 Ind. Games
CHW 2007 4 Ind. Games
CHC 2007 4 Ind. Games
TBD 2007 3 Ind. Games
PHI 2007 3 Ind. Games
CIN 2007 3 Ind. Games
BOS 2007 3 Ind. Games
SFG 2007 2 Ind. Games
SEA 2007 2 Ind. Games
OAK 2007 2 Ind. Games
LAD 2007 2 Ind. Games
HOU 2007 2 Ind. Games
TEX 2007 1 Ind. Games
STL 2007 1 Ind. Games
NYY 2007 1 Ind. Games
FLA 2007 1 Ind. Games
BAL 2007 1 Ind. Games
ATL 2007 1 Ind. Games
One team, Pittsburgh, has no victories so far this year with 5 or fewer hits.
And here are each team's total losses in games where they had 5 or fewer hits:
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
CHW 2007 26 Ind. Games
ARI 2007 25 Ind. Games
TEX 2007 23 Ind. Games
KCR 2007 23 Ind. Games
WSN 2007 22 Ind. Games
TOR 2007 20 Ind. Games
TBD 2007 19 Ind. Games
SFG 2007 19 Ind. Games
SDP 2007 18 Ind. Games
PIT 2007 18 Ind. Games
OAK 2007 18 Ind. Games
MIN 2007 18 Ind. Games
ATL 2007 18 Ind. Games
STL 2007 17 Ind. Games
PHI 2007 16 Ind. Games
COL 2007 16 Ind. Games
NYY 2007 15 Ind. Games
MIL 2007 15 Ind. Games
LAA 2007 15 Ind. Games
CLE 2007 15 Ind. Games
FLA 2007 14 Ind. Games
CIN 2007 14 Ind. Games
HOU 2007 13 Ind. Games
BAL 2007 13 Ind. Games
BOS 2007 12 Ind. Games
SEA 2007 11 Ind. Games
LAD 2007 11 Ind. Games
CHC 2007 10 Ind. Games
DET 2007 9 Ind. Games
NYM 2007 7 Ind. Games
As you'd expect, all teams have at least 1 such loss. (In fact, all teams have at least 7 such losses.)
Now, with a little Excel magic, here are the same data as above, but ranked by team record in these games:
(listing is TEAM NAME / wins / losses / W%)
NYM 7 7 0.500
DET 4 9 0.308
SDP 8 18 0.308
CHC 4 10 0.286
TOR 7 20 0.259
CLE 5 15 0.250
MIN 5 18 0.217
LAA 4 15 0.211
MIL 4 15 0.211
BOS 3 12 0.200
COL 4 16 0.200
CIN 3 14 0.176
ARI 5 25 0.167
PHI 3 16 0.158
LAD 2 11 0.154
SEA 2 11 0.154
WSN 4 22 0.154
KCR 4 23 0.148
TBD 3 19 0.136
CHW 4 26 0.133
HOU 2 13 0.133
OAK 2 18 0.100
SFG 2 19 0.095
BAL 1 13 0.071
FLA 1 14 0.067
NYY 1 15 0.063
STL 1 17 0.056
ATL 1 18 0.053
TEX 1 23 0.042
PIT 0 18 0.000
Statistically, I'm not sure there's much difference between being 15th on this list or last on this list. If one hit happens to be a 3-run homer, it's a lot easier to win a game. But I do find a few things of interest on this list:
- The Mets' performance is truly impressive. Not only do they have 7 wins with 5 or fewer hits (tied for 2nd-best), but they have only 7 losses (best).
- Compare that to Arizona, who has a similar number of such wins (5) but many more such losses (25.)
- There is only one playoff-probable team in the bottom half of this list: the Yankees, with a dreadful 1-15 mark. However, they did win on Wednesday with just 4 hits, making their record 2-15. It's been proven time and time again that playoff teams rarely win with a superior offense. If the Yankees don't get more than 5 hits, they don't win, and they may be in for a quick exit in the playoffs (again.)
Posted in Game Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Chris J. on September 12, 2007
Heading into today, Juan Uribe of the White Sox is hitting, .227 /.280 /.386 on the year with 18 homers. That works out to an OPS+ of 72. Can he have the worst 20 homer season EVER? Let's check.
Going by OPS+, he's on pace to be the worst ever, edging out Marquis Grissom's 73 from 2001. It's awful nice, since Uribe just missed out-worsing Grissom last year with his 74 OPS+.
By plain ol' OPS, it's the illustrious Willie Kirkland.
By batting average, he wouldn't even be close to Rob Deer's 1991.
By OBP, Grissom would remain the king.
By SLG, it's Dale Murphy of all people.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted by Andy on September 12, 2007
A-rod has a streak of 5 consecutive games with a homer broken last night. Click through for the full list of players to homer in at least 5 straight games since 1997. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Streak Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Andy on September 12, 2007
Here's a make-up post for one that got deleted accidentally, about the most times players have achieved 40/40, 30/30, 20/20, and 10/10 seasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 11, 2007
Posted in Game Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Andy on September 11, 2007
Following Steve's lead, let's take a quick look at some historical post-season happenings, specifically the 1996 AL Division Series between the Texas Rangers and the New York Yankees. Or, as I like to call it, the Juan Gonzalez show.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Box Scores, Event Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 10, 2007
So, tonight, I'm watching a replay of Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS on the YES Network, and I noticed that both Thurman Munson and Buck Martinez had three hits in the game. That made me wonder: How many times have catchers on both teams had 3+ hits in the same post-season game?
Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder for Post-Season Games, I was able to run a list of all post-season games where a catcher had 3+ hits in the contest.
From there, I was able to see that there have only been three times in baseball history where catchers on both teams had 3+ hits in the same post-season game:
Buck Martinez and Thurman Munson in Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS
Rich Gedman and Bob Boone in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS
Rich Gedman and Gary Carter in Game 4 of the 1986 World Series
So, while Munson and Martinez were not the only ones to do this, they were the first pair to ever reach this feat.
Amazing that it took so long to happen - and that it's happened so few times - when you consider how many post-season games have been played in big league history.
Posted in Game Finders | 3 Comments »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 10, 2007
Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season find tells us that there have only been 19 times where a player has 50+ HR in a season where he also has less than 100 BB in that year. Here's the list:
From To Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------
Alex Rodriguez 2001 2007 25-31 3 Ind. Seasons
Sammy Sosa 1998 2000 29-31 3 Ind. Seasons
Ken Griffey 1997 1998 27-28 2 Ind. Seasons
Willie Mays 1955 1965 24-34 2 Ind. Seasons
Andruw Jones 2005 2005 28-28 1 Ind. Seasons
Greg Vaughn 1998 1998 32-32 1 Ind. Seasons
Brady Anderson 1996 1996 32-32 1 Ind. Seasons
Albert Belle 1995 1995 28-28 1 Ind. Seasons
Cecil Fielder 1990 1990 26-26 1 Ind. Seasons
George Foster 1977 1977 28-28 1 Ind. Seasons
Roger Maris 1961 1961 26-26 1 Ind. Seasons
Johnny Mize 1947 1947 34-34 1 Ind. Seasons
Ralph Kiner 1947 1947 24-24 1 Ind. Seasons
Seasons/Careers found: 19.
If A-Rod keeps his pace this season in the BB-department, he'll join Sammy Sosa as the only player in baseball history with 3 seasons of "50+ HR and <=99 BB."
I wonder why teams don't give Alex the "Barry Bonds" treatment and just walk him?
Posted in Season Finders | 6 Comments »
