Comments on: Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!

By: rico petrocelli

rico petrocelli — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:23:47 +0000

I was at the game where Mattingly hit his 6th -- Off Bruse Hurst, a lefty, who never ever gave up many homers and basically none to lefties. A titanic upper deck shot to right. Even as a Sox fan I had to scream it was so beautiful. And Hurst basically shat his pants. He was so stunned he had to leave the game.

By: DoubleDiamond

DoubleDiamond — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:15:59 +0000

The Phillies' first win this year, in their third game of the season, featured an inning late in the game (7th, I think) in which they scored something like 8 runs, to take the lead after going into the inning trailing 10-3. They had several bases loaded situations in that inning, especially with two out, but worked walks and got lucky with some errors, if I recall correctly. The next day, I read a quote from Matt Stairs saying, to the effect, that when he came up to pinch hit with the bases loaded during that inning, he tried to get a walk rather than a slam because the grand slam could have become a rally killer. I had never heard anyone say this before, but as I was listening to that very at bat on the car radio, I had thought the same thing.

Later in the season, Stairs did get a pinch hit grand slam in the 9th inning of a game in Washington in which the Phillies trailed by a large margin. They did put some runners on base after that but fell one run short of catching up.

By: TheGoofyOne

TheGoofyOne — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:12:35 +0000

I found the Angels' lack of a grand slam amazing for half a second. Then I realized that in addition to their great power, they've got great speed. If you don't play station to station, even a team combining light hitters and power hitters might not get many slams.

By: JohnnyTwisto

JohnnyTwisto — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:13:25 +0000

(I don't know if that still counts as recent, it must have been 2002.)

By: JohnnyTwisto

JohnnyTwisto — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:12:53 +0000

Marcus Thames.

By: Djibouti

Djibouti — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:29:08 +0000

Hafner with the bases loaded in '06: 16 PA, 8 H, 6 HR, 30 RBI, 2.420 OPS in '07: 17 PA, 2 H, 1 HR, 12 RBI, 0.711 OPS in '08: 6 PA, 0 H, 0 HR, 2 RBI, 0.000 OPS in '09: 13 PA, 2 H, 1 HR, 12 RBI, 0.397 OPS "One of these things is not like the others" '06 was also the year that Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a GS on the first pitch he saw as a major leaguer. I thought it was against Randy Johnson, but on looking it up, turns out it was against Edinson Volquez. I know somebody recently hit a HR off Johnson in their first career at-bat. Not that that's improbable, but it's one of those "nowhere to go but down" moments.

By: apreziosi

apreziosi — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:57:54 +0000

Dave: Proving that grand slams are rally killers! 🙂

By: dave

dave — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:48:23 +0000

The team with the worst record in baseball--nationals--has the 2nd most grand slams this year (tied with other clubs) and the team with the 2nd best record in baseball--angels--has no grand slams.
HA!

Obviously these homers don't point to winning!

By: dave

dave — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:47:20 +0000

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:46:13 +0000

Right.