Yesterday, Alex Rodriguez had a single monster inning to bring his season totals to 30 HR and 100 RBI, very impressive feats given that he played in only about 3/4ths of the season.

Anyway, here are the fewest games in a season where a player reached 30 HR and 100 RBI:

  Cnt Player             **G**  HR RBI Year Age Tm  Lg  PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Rudy York           104   35 103 1937  23 DET AL 417 375  72 115 18  3  41   0  52   0   1   0   0   3  2  .307  .375  .651 1.026 *25/3
    2 Albert Belle        106   36 101 1994  27 CLE AL 480 412  90 147 35  2  58   9  71   5   1   4   5   9  6  .357  .438  .714 1.152 *7/D
    3 Jeff Bagwell        110   39 116 1994  26 HOU NL 479 400 104 147 32  2  65  14  65   4   0  10  12  15  4  .368  .451  .750 1.201 *3/9
    4 Frank Thomas        113   38 101 1994  26 CHW AL 517 399 106 141 34  1 109  12  61   2   0   7  15   2  3  .353  .487  .729 1.216 *3D
    5 Manny Ramirez       118   38 122 2000  28 CLE AL 532 439  92 154 34  2  86   9 117   3   0   4   9   1  1  .351  .457  .697 1.154 *9D
    6 Manny Ramirez       120   33 107 2002  30 BOS AL 518 436  84 152 31  0  73  14  85   8   0   1  13   0  0  .349  .450  .647 1.097 *7D/9
    7 Joe DiMaggio        120   30 126 1939  24 NYY AL 524 462 108 176 32  6  52   0  20   4   6   0  11   3  0  .381  .448  .671 1.119 *8
    8 Dick Allen          122   34 101 1970  28 STL NL 533 459  88 128 17  5  71  16 118   2   0   1   9   5  4  .279  .377  .560  .937 *35/7
    9 Roy Campanella      123   32 107 1955  33 BRO NL 522 446  81 142 20  1  56   9  41   6   5   9  14   2  3  .318  .395  .583  .978 *2
   10 Alex Rodriguez      124   30 100 2009  33 NYY AL 535 444  78 127 17  1  80   7  97   8   0   3  13  14  2  .286  .402  .532  .934 *5/D
   11 Sammy Sosa          124   40 100 1996  27 CHC NL 541 498  84 136 21  2  34   6 134   5   0   4  14  18  5  .273  .323  .564  .887 *9
   12 Jimmie Foxx         124   35 105 1939  31 BOS AL 563 467 130 168 31 10  89   0  72   2   5   0  17   4  3  .360  .464  .694 1.158 *3/1
   13 Moises Alou         126   30 114 2000  33 HOU NL 517 454  82 161 28  2  52   4  45   2   0   9  21   3  3  .355  .416  .623 1.039 *97/D
   14 Jay Buhner          126   40 121 1995  30 SEA AL 539 470  86 123 23  0  60   7 120   1   2   6  15   0  1  .262  .343  .566  .909 *9/D
   15 Larry Walker        127   37 115 1999  32 COL NL 513 438 108 166 26  4  57   8  52  12   0   6  12  11  4  .379  .458  .710 1.168 *9/D
   16 David Ortiz         128   31 101 2003  27 BOS AL 509 448  79 129 39  2  58   8  83   1   0   2   9   0  0  .288  .369  .592  .961 *D3
   17 Frank Thomas        128   30 102 1953  24 PIT NL 510 455  68 116 22  1  50   0  93   2   3   0  12   1  2  .255  .331  .505  .836 *89/7
   18 Travis Hafner       129   42 117 2006  29 CLE AL 563 454 100 140 31  1 100  16 111   7   0   2  10   0  0  .308  .439  .659 1.098 *D/3
   19 Javy Lopez          129   43 109 2003  32 ATL NL 495 457  89 150 29  3  33   5  90   4   0   1  10   0  1  .328  .378  .687 1.065 *2/D
   20 Alex Rodriguez      129   42 111 1999  23 SEA AL 572 502 110 143 25  0  56   2 109   5   1   8  12  21  7  .285  .357  .586  .943 *6

A-rod's 2009 season cracks the top 10 and his 1999 rounds out the top 20.

I love this list. It's all modern players except for a sprinkling of star players from long ago: York in 1937, DiMaggio in 1939, Allen in 1970, Campanella in 1955, Foxx in 1939, and Thomas in 1953. That's right--both Frank Thomases appear in this list!

Notice that the strike year of 1994 is prominently represented at positions 2 through 4.

Baseball-Reference Blog » All-Time Tiebreaker Playoff Games

Neil just went through and created a list of all of the tiebreaker games in MLB history.

I have to admit that I really thought Adam Dunn was going to hit 40 HR again this season after having done that each of the 4 previous seasons. He hit his 38th homer in the Nationals' 150th game this season, and then played 10 more games this season through yesterday's finale. Dunn ended up going hitless in 8 out of those 10 games and homerless in all 10.

Still, Dunn had a great season. His 142 OPS+ was the second-highest of his career, as were his 105 RBI, and his BA, OBP, and SLG were all above his career averages.

Jose Molina started at D.H. for the Yankees, batting 9th, in their game of October 2, 2009. This got me wondering as to who holds the record for most times appearing in a starting line-up, as a D.H., while batting 9th. To get the answer, I used Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder and set the controls for:

"Batting #9, Played: DH, as Starter, (requiring PA>=0), sorted by greatest number of games"

And, here's the answer to that query - showing guys who have done it at least 4 times, to date, in their career:

                   Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
 Nick Johnson         27 Ind. Games                
 Orlando Palmeiro     21 Ind. Games                
 Jerry Hairston       19 Ind. Games                
 Mike Young           18 Ind. Games                
 Dave Collins         13 Ind. Games                
 Jeff Davanon         10 Ind. Games                
 Bob Bailey           10 Ind. Games                
 Ray Knight            9 Ind. Games                
 Midre Cummings        9 Ind. Games                
 Dave Bergman          9 Ind. Games                
 Jim Dwyer             8 Ind. Games                
 Reggie Willits        7 Ind. Games                
 Rick Leach            7 Ind. Games                
 Jason Dubois          7 Ind. Games                
 Larry Sheets          6 Ind. Games                
 Rick Peters           6 Ind. Games                
 Scott Livingstone     6 Ind. Games                
 Glenallen Hill        6 Ind. Games                
 Jay Gibbons           6 Ind. Games                
 Jack Brohamer         6 Ind. Games                
 Travis Snider         5 Ind. Games                
 Tim Laudner           5 Ind. Games                
 Jonny Gomes           5 Ind. Games                
 Esteban German        5 Ind. Games                
 Shelley Duncan        5 Ind. Games                
 Eric Crozier          5 Ind. Games                
 Bernie Williams       4 Ind. Games                
 Guillermo Quiroz      4 Ind. Games                
 Jose Morban           4 Ind. Games                
 Pete LaForest         4 Ind. Games                
 Garry Hancock         4 Ind. Games                
 Dave Engle            4 Ind. Games                
 Shawon Dunston        4 Ind. Games                
 Bernie Carbo          4 Ind. Games                
 Bob Brower            4 Ind. Games                
 Tom Brookens          4 Ind. Games                

Who was the very first batter in big league history to do this? Why...that would be Kurt Bevacqua back in 1973. So, the next time you see someone, in a big league game, starting at D.H. and batting 9th...just tell them that they're pulling a "Bevacqua."

In case you hadn't made your way over to Hockey-Reference yet today, here's a reminder that H-R is up-to-date with stats and information through the current 2009-10 season, and will be automatically updated with the previous day's results every morning from now until the end of the playoffs in June.

I've been making some updates and improvements to the postseason stats on the site.

First off, the playoff stats on the player and postseason summary pages now match what we have in our pbp database. In the past, these were essentially two different sources with some crossover. It all now jibes with our pbp database. The main changes are that 1981 is not messed up for pitcher IP's as it was, the recent years have full stat lines, we now have wpa info for the 1914 WS. The fact the Braves played in Fenway messed things up and we got that fixed.

Second, I have added a best_of column to our database, so you can now search for just game 7's (or 5's) in the Game Finders and Postseason Event Finders.

I've re-run all of the postseason pages, so they should be ready to roll for next week.

Today, I thought it would be a good idea to follow up on Monday's post about individual batting gamelogs with a few words about our gamelogs for individual pitchers.

Pitching gamelogs boast the same row-summing features and career/season-to-date red text tooltips as their batting counterparts, of course, and the amount of data we show for each of the pitcher's games is really going to help you know everything you need to about his performance. We have the standard box score line -- Dec, IP, H, BB, K, ER, etc. -- but we also show how many days of rest he pitched on, how many batters he faced, his pitch count (along with detailed numbers on his strikes and batted balls allowed), SB/CS data, the opposing batting line, his Win Probability Added and the Leverage Index for his appearance, plus the circumstances under which he entered and exited the game. I should also point out that above the gamelog table, you can find the team's record in the pitcher's appearances/starts, and at the bottom of the page you will see a table containing his usage by days of rest, as well as a table showing the distribution of his run support over the season in question.

And if that wasn't enough, you can also click on various items in the logs to pull up even more in-depth information. By clicking on the pitcher's red text in the innings pitched column, you'll see an inning-by-inning breakdown of his outing, including hits and runs allowed, as well as batters faced, pitches, and strikes thrown. If you click the red tooltip under the "Entered" column, you'll see a box pop up with a graphical representation of the situation when he came in, including the men on base and the fielders behind him.

But perhaps the most mind-blowing feature is what happens when you click the link in the pitch count column. Go ahead, try it... The link will take you to BrooksBaseball.net's PitchFX Tool, which gives you an amazing assortment of tables and graphs culled from MLBAM's Pitchf/x system (you know, that thing with the cameras that tracks pitches). You can see velocities, inches of break, etc. from the game in question, courtesy of BrooksBaseball's pages, and all of it links up directly with our gamelogs to give you a very visible connection between the player's results (H, ER, BB, K) and the pitches that led to those results. (Note: Currently, this feature is only available for the 2009 season.)

So go over and check out our pitching gamelogs, I know you'll get a lot of use out of them, especially with the playoffs on the horizon.

I was surprised to see in Andy's post this morning how many pitchers have hit grand slams in recent years. I also noticed that,  not surprisingly, none have done it past the sixth inning of a game. In fact, no pitcher has hit a grand slam after the sixth inning since Don Robinson in 1985. In all, 7 pitchers have hit a late inning grand slams since 1954.  With one exception, all of those pitchers were up by at least 3 runs at the time.  The only pitcher since 1954 to hit a late inning grand slam in a close game was Rick Wise in 1971. Wise had already homered in the game and by the end of the day would have 6 home runs on the season. Here are the 7 late inning grand slam pitchers:

       1   1 1985-09-12    Don Robinson      PIT  CHC Warren Brusstar   ahead  6-2  b 8 123   2  -        4 Home Run; Brown Scores; Gonzalez Scores; Khalifa Scores

       2   1 1984-05-15    Joaquin Andujar   STL  ATL Jeff Dedmon       ahead  5-1  b 8 123   2  -        4 Home Run; Van Slyke Scores; Smith Scores; Nieto Scores

       3   1 1980-10-01    Enrique Romo      PIT @NYM Roy Lee Jackson   ahead  6-3  t 8 123   0  -        4 Home Run; Nicosia Scores; Moreno Scores; Foli Scores

       4   1 1977-09-27    Larry Christenson PHI @CHC Dennis Lamp       ahead  7-2  t 7 123   2  -        4 Home Run; Maddox Scores; Boone Scores; Sizemore Scores

       5   1 1971-08-28(2) Rick Wise         PHI  SFG Don McMahon       tied   3-3  b 7 123   1  -        4 Home Run; Gamble Scores; Freed Scores; McCarver Scores

       6   1 1966-08-13    Earl Wilson       DET @BOS Dan Osinski       ahead  6-1  t 7 123   1  -        4 Home Run; Horton Scores; Wert Scores; McFarlane Scores

       7   1 1965-09-29    Bob Gibson        STL @SFG Gaylord Perry     ahead  4-0  t 8 123   1  -        4 Home Run (LF-CF); McCarver Scores; Shannon Scores; Maxvill Scores

Raphy wrote about Chris Carpenter's great day with the bat yesterday and I wanted to add a little bit more.

Carpenter hit a grand slam and was the first pitcher in 2009 to do so.

Going back, here are grand slams hit by pitchers in recent years:

   Yr#    G# Date          Batter            Tm   Opp Pitcher           Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc.
+-------+---+-------------+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
       1   1 2008-06-23    Felix Hernandez   SEA @NYM Johan Santana     tied   0-0  t 2 123   2 0-0   1   4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep CF-RF); Beltre Scores/unER; Clement Scores/unER; Bloomquist Scores/unER; Hernandez Scores/unER
       2   1 2008-09-22    Jason Marquis     CHC @NYM Jonathon Niese    tied   2-2  t 4 123   0 0-0   1   4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF); DeRosa Scores; Johnson Scores; Theriot Scores
       1   1 2006-07-07    Dontrelle Willis  FLA @NYM Jose Lima         ahead  3-0  t 4 123   0 0-0   1   4 Home Run (Fly Ball); Willingham Scores/unER; Hermida Scores; Treanor Scores
       1   1 2002-06-02    Robert Person     PHI  MON Bruce Chen        ahead  3-0  b 1 123   2 1-0   2   4 Home Run; Giambi Scores; Lee Scores; Pratt Scores
       1   1 2001-09-29    Denny Neagle      COL  MIL Jimmy Haynes      ahead  9-6  b 4 123   2 0-1   2   4 Home Run (CF-RF); Ochoa Scores; Uribe Scores; Bennett Scores
       1   1 2000-05-24    Shawn Estes       SFG  MON Mike Johnson      ahead  7-0  b 5 123   2 0-0   1   4 Home Run (LF-CF); Kent Scores; Snow Scores; Burks Scores
       1   1 1998-07-20    Kevin Tapani      CHC @ATL Denny Neagle      ahead  1-0  t 3 123   2 1-1   3   4 Home Run (Line Drive to Deep LF); Hill Scores; Orie Scores; Servais Scores
       2   1 1998-09-02    Kent Mercker      STL @FLA Jesus Sanchez     ahead  3-0  t 4 123   0 1-1   3   4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF Line); Gant Scores; Tatis Scores; Polanco Scores
       1   1 1996-09-07    Donovan Osborne   STL  SDP Andy Ashby        tied   1-1  b 5 123   1  -        4 Home Run (Deep CF-RF); Mabry Scores; Pagnozzi Scores; Alicea Scores
       1   1 1995-05-29    Chris Hammond     FLA  HOU Shane Reynolds    down   0-2  b 2 123   1 1-1   3   4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF); Pendleton Scores; Whitmore Scores; Johnson Scores
       2   1 1995-06-27    Denny Neagle      PIT @CHC Jim Bullinger     tied   2-2  t 6 123   2  -        4 Home Run (Deep LF-CF); Merced Scores; Garcia Scores; Liriano Scores
       3   1 1995-08-25    Jeff Juden        PHI  LAD John Cummings     ahead 10-2  b 4 123   2 2-2   5   4 Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF Line); Webster Scores/unER; Hayes Scores/unER; Van Slyke Scores/unER; Juden Scores/unERs

Ahh, good times. I can remember every single one of these slams.

Joseph, a reader, was wondering if there was a pitcher aside from Nolan Ryan in 1987 to win 2 legs of the pitching triple crown and still have a losing record. We can't use PI to definitively answer this question, but we can certainly look at some pretty amazing seasons by pitchers with losing records.  Here are all the pitchers since 1901 to post an ERA+ of at least 125 with at least 200 strikeouts and still have a losing record.

   Cnt Player           **ERA+**  W-L%  SO Year Age Tm  Lg  G   GS CG SHO GF  W  L SV   IP   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 Ed Walsh             189    .474 258 1910  29 CHW AL  45  36 33   7  7 18 20  5 369.2 242  90  52  61   1.27  5 1386                  4                        2  6                            0
      1st in the league ERA;  2nd in SO
    2 Ben Sheets           162    .462 264 2004  25 MIL NL  34  34  5   0  0 12 14  0 237   201  85  71  32   2.70 25  937  891 57  4   1   4   6   4  10  15  5  1  1  8  .226  .255  .383  .638   66 3579 2441
      3rd in ERA; 2nd in SO
    3 Cy Young             148    .486 210 1905  38 BOS AL  38  33 31   4  5 18 19  0 320.2 248  99  65  30   1.82  3 1238                 10                        0  6                            0
      3rd in ERA; 2nd in SO
    4 Jim Bunning          143    .440 201 1960  28 DET AL  36  34 10   3  1 11 14  0 252   217  92  78  64   2.79 20 1024  923 43  4   7  11  23   6  17  11 12  0  0  2  .235  .291  .355  .646   76
      2nd in ERA; 1st in SO
    5 Nolan Ryan           142    .333 270 1987  40 HOU NL  34  34  0   0  0  8 16  0 211.2 154  75  65  87   2.76 14  873  771 23  3   2   4   9   1   6  45  7  0  2 10  .200  .284  .292  .576   60
      1st in ERA; 1st in SO
    6 Roger Clemens        139    .435 257 1996  33 BOS AL  34  34  6   2  0 10 13  0 242.2 216 106  98 106   3.63 19 1032  911 39  7   2   4   4   7  17  30 13  4  1  8  .237  .317  .358  .675   70
      7th in ERA; 1st in SO
    7 Melido Perez         138    .448 218 1992  26 NYY AL  33  33 10   1  0 13 16  0 247.2 212  94  79  93   2.87 16 1013  901 33  3   5   5   6   8  19  18 18  9  0 13  .235  .308  .332  .640   79
      6th in ERA; 2nd in SO
    8 Gaylord Perry        128    .469 230 1967  28 SFG NL  39  37 18   3  2 15 17  1 293   231  98  85  84   2.61 20 1178 1077 28  5  17   4  11   2  28  10  8  1  1 13  .214  .273  .305  .578   71
      5th in ERA; 3rd in SO
    9 Floyd Bannister      125    .480 209 1982  27 SEA AL  35  35  5   3  0 12 13  0 247   225 112  94  77   3.43 32 1022  927 45  3   0   3  10   5  17  18 12  2  0  6  .243  .301  .401  .702   88
      8th in ERA; 1st in SO
   10 Bert Blyleven        125    .448 219 1976  25 TOT AL  36  36 18   6  0 13 16  0 297.2 283 106  95  81   2.87 14 1225 1108 33 10   6  12  18   6  35  34 11  0  2  7  .255  .312  .341  .653   89
      9th in ERA; 3rd in SO
   11 Mike Mussina         125    .423 210 2000  31 BAL AL  34  34  6   1  0 11 15  0 237.2 236 105 100  46   3.79 28  987  924 47  3   0   3   8   6  19  16  3  0  0  3  .255  .291  .404  .695   78 3644 2419
      3rd in ERA; 3rd in SO

 

At least among these pitchers, Ryan was the only won to win 2/3 of the triple crown.