Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 7, 2009
File this one under: How'd they do that?
Via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder, since 1954, games of 9 innings or less, where the winning team walked 14 or more of the other team's batters in the contest:
Cnt Date Tm Opp GmReslt IP H R ER BB SO HR Pit Str IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk Ptchrs ERA
+----+-------------+---+----+-------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+------+------+
1 1992-05-07 CHW BOS W 7-6 9 6 6 4 15 9 0 206 105 4 1 47 32 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 5 4.00
2 1968-04-30 BAL NYY W 6-5 9 5 5 4 14 10 0 8 0 45 30 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 4 4.00
3 1959-07-31 BOS DET W 6-5 9 5 5 5 15 4 3 7 0 47 29 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 5 5.00
4 1958-05-11 STL CHC W 8-7 9 7 7 7 14 4 0 5 2 47 31 4 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 7.00
Posted in Game Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Raphy on August 6, 2009
Earlier today Andy was telling me about Derek Jeter's uncanny ability to reach base via an error. Although I foolishly did not believe him at the time, Jeter's lead in this category among active players is significant. Here are the leaders in games with at least 1 ROE since 1996 when Jeter began his career. (EDIT I of course forgot that Jeter did get a few ABs in '95)
Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
Derek Jeter 152 Ind. Games
Johnny Damon 113 Ind. Games
Alex Rodriguez 111 Ind. Games
Jason Kendall 107 Ind. Games
Craig Biggio 107 Ind. Games
Edgar Renteria 105 Ind. Games
Kenny Lofton 97 Ind. Games
Luis Castillo 94 Ind. Games
Miguel Tejada 93 Ind. Games
Ray Durham 93 Ind. Games
Judging from the top three, I suspect we have stumbled upon Brian Cashman's secret plan for building a team.
Here are the leaders since 1954. Jeter is tied for 16th overall.
+-----------------+-----+-------------------------+
Pete Rose 205 Ind. Games
Luis Aparicio 191 Ind. Games
Hank Aaron 186 Ind. Games
Robin Yount 181 Ind. Games
Bert Campaneris 170 Ind. Games
Roberto Clemente 169 Ind. Games
Craig Biggio 169 Ind. Games
Vada Pinson 168 Ind. Games
Al Kaline 167 Ind. Games
Cal Ripken 164 Ind. Games
Frank Robinson 162 Ind. Games
Rickey Henderson 159 Ind. Games
Lou Brock 158 Ind. Games
Brooks Robinson 153 Ind. Games
Andre Dawson 153 Ind. Games
Paul Molitor 152 Ind. Games
Derek Jeter 152 Ind. Games
Rod Carew 150 Ind. Games
Dave Winfield 148 Ind. Games
Tony Perez 147 Ind. Games
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Posted by Raphy on August 6, 2009
I have recently discovered the joy of reading old Baseball Digest articles by Rich Marazzi regarding anomalies during past baseball seasons. In his review of the 2000 season Marazzi makes mention of how the Yankees had 3 sacrifice flies in an inning twice during that season. This impossible sounding feat can occur when an error is made on a fly ball and the official scorer rules that the runner on third would have scored, thereby awarding a batter a sacrifice fly even though he didn't make out. Although we can't easily research this using PI (until there is an batting inning finder), The Baseball Almanac lists the four times in baseball history that this has happened and I thought it might be interesting to look at the play descriptions from these games.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Gamelogs | 8 Comments »
Posted by Andy on August 6, 2009
Check out this list of most games this year getting on base at least once:
Year Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+----+-----+-------------------------+
Albert Pujols 2009 98 Ind. Games
Prince Fielder 2009 94 Ind. Games
Adrian Gonzalez 2009 92 Ind. Games
Adam Dunn 2009 92 Ind. Games
Mark Teixeira 2009 91 Ind. Games
Ichiro Suzuki 2009 91 Ind. Games
Marco Scutaro 2009 91 Ind. Games
Carlos Pena 2009 90 Ind. Games
Justin Morneau 2009 90 Ind. Games
Nick Markakis 2009 90 Ind. Games
Carl Crawford 2009 90 Ind. Games
Ryan Zimmerman 2009 89 Ind. Games
Michael Young 2009 89 Ind. Games
David Wright 2009 89 Ind. Games
Chase Utley 2009 89 Ind. Games
Mark Reynolds 2009 88 Ind. Games
Chone Figgins 2009 88 Ind. Games
There's only one surprising name on here, and that's Marco Scutaro.
Scutaro has been a pretty decent middle infielder for several years now. He doesn't put up huge offensive numbers but his OPS+ has been consistently right around 90. This year, it's way up to 118 and he's already set career highs for walks and SB. In just a few more games, he's very likely to set career highs in runs, 2B, and total bases. Unless he runs into a big slump, he'll finish the year with career highs in BA, OBP, and SLG.
Scutaro hasn't really flown under the radar thanks to a whole bunch of game-winning plate appearances. Can you believe that Scutaro has already been responsible for NINE walk-off wins? That's more than most players get in their entire careers, much less below-average middle infielders. Those walk-off winners include homers off closers B. J. Ryan in 2004 and Mariano Rivera in 2007.
Posted in Event Finders, Game Finders | 6 Comments »
Posted by Sean Forman on August 5, 2009
Just a quick note that the servers will be down for probably a couple of minutes to install some software updates.
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Posted by Raphy on August 5, 2009
Arthur Rhodes has now pitched in 46 games this season without earning a decision and now stands only 2 games away from second place for most games in a season without having a record. The record is 76 games set 2 years ago by Trever Miller, whose exploits were documented on the SoTD blog. Here are the current leaders.
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Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
Posted by Andy on August 5, 2009
Raphy's post the other day made me wonder about longest streaks for an individual pitcher with more than 9 IP. That means at least 9.1 innings in each start. Here are the leaders since 1954: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Streak Finders | 4 Comments »
Posted by Raphy on August 4, 2009
Here is a quick trivia question for you:
Which 2 pitchers have won the most games in relief this decade?
Here is the answer. The pitcher listed second surprised me.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Posted by Raphy on August 4, 2009
The Giants have pitched 3 extra innings shutouts this year. This ties them with 8 other teams since 1901. Two teams since 1901 pitched 4 such games and only the 1965 Mets threw 5 (1 was a tie).
Tm Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
NYM 1965 5 Ind. Games
CLE 1968 4 Ind. Games
CHW 1967 4 Ind. Games
STL 1980 3 Ind. Games
SFG 1976 3 Ind. Games
SFG 2009 3 Ind. Games
PIT 1958 3 Ind. Games
NYM 1969 3 Ind. Games
HOU 1976 3 Ind. Games
CHW 1957 3 Ind. Games
CAL 1972 3 Ind. Games
ATL 1974 3 Ind. Games
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Posted by Andy on August 4, 2009
A few days ago, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates hit 3 homers in his 103rd career major-league game.
(CORRECTION: It was the Pirates' 103rd game this year but McCutchen's 51st career game. I already wrote the post below before I noticed the mistake, so let's just go with it...)
Here are all the guys since 1954 to hit 3 homers in one of his first 103 games:
Cnt CarGm 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 51 Andrew McCutchen 2009-08-01 PIT WSN W 11-6 5 5 4 4 0 0 3 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1st CF
2 56 Joey Votto 2008-05-07 CIN CHC W 9-0 5 4 3 3 0 0 3 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 5th 1B
3 103 Cody Ross 2006-09-11 FLA NYM W 16-5 5 5 3 4 0 0 3 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6th RF
4 57 Jonny Gomes 2005-07-30 TBD KCR W 7-3 4 4 3 3 0 0 3 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5th RF
5 36 Jose Ortiz 2001-08-17 COL FLA W 12-5 5 5 3 3 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2nd 2B
6 87 Trot Nixon 1999-07-24 BOS @DET W 11-4 4 4 3 3 0 0 3 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9th RF
7 10 Bobby Estalella 1997-09-04 PHI @MON W 6-4 4 4 3 3 0 0 3 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7th C
8 64 Ernie Young 1996-05-10 OAK MIN W 15-5 6 5 4 4 0 0 3 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1st CF
9 83 Mark McGwire 1987-06-27 OAK @CLE W 13-3 5 5 5 4 0 0 3 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4th 1B
10 69 Fred Lynn 1975-06-18 BOS @DET W 15-1 6 6 4 5 0 1 3 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4th CF
11 97 Bill Melton 1969-06-24(2) CHW @SEP W 7-6 5 5 3 4 1 0 3 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6th 3B
12 63 Joe Lahoud 1969-06-11 BOS @MIN W 13-5 5 5 3 3 0 0 3 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6th RF
13 70 Don Leppert 1963-04-11 WSA BOS W 8-0 4 4 3 3 0 0 3 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 6th C
14 55 Don Demeter 1959-04-21 LAD SFG W 9-7 6 5 3 3 0 0 3 6 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4th CF
15 30 Norm Zauchin 1955-05-27 BOS WSH W 16-0 5 5 4 4 1 0 3 10 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5th 1B
This list is pretty interesting for a few reasons:
- The "high-offense" era we're currently in rears its head again, as half the guys on this list are from the last 14 seasons while just 7 come from 1987 or earlier.
- Somewhat surprisingly, this list isn't all that predictive for guys who'd go on to hit lots of homers. Of these 15 players, the only ones with at least 100 career homers are Nixon, McGwire, Lynn, Melton, and Demeter (although the jury is still out on McCutchen, Votto, Ross, and Gomes.)
- Every single game was won by the team with the player who hit 3 homers. That's a bit of a surprise in this day and age.
- There's quite a range in terms of production. Gomes had just 3 RBI, meaning he hit 3 solo homers. Zauchin hit a 2-run homer, a grand slam, and a 3-run homer, plus added an RBI double for a total of 10 runs batted in. Lynn had a 2-run homer, a pair of 3-run homers, and a 2-run triple, and he was the only guy in this group to get 5 hits.
- Not a single guy was intentionally walked. I guess it's a long-standing rule in baseball that the opposing team should not walk a guy attempting to hit his fourth homer of the game.
- After I wrote this, I noticed that McCutchen did it in his 51st game, and there are only 3 guys on this list to do it earlier in their careers. Wow.
Posted in Game Finders | 10 Comments »
