Posted by Raphy on June 2, 2008
Tonight Chase Utley homered for the fifth consecutive game. It marked the second time this season that he has done so. Here are the players since 1956 with the most home run streaks of 5+ games in their careers.
Barry Bonds (4)
Alex Rodriguez (3)
Frank Thomas (3)
Harmon Killebrew (3)
Willie Mays (3)
Chase Utley (2)
Jay Buhner (2)
Jim Thome (2)
Jose Canseco (2)
Ken Griffey Jr. (2)
By having 2 streaks in the same season, Utley joins Bonds(2001), Thomas(1994) and Killebrew (1970). Amazingly, Bonds and Thomas had completed their second streaks earlier in the season (by date) than Utley did. Bonds had 2 six game homerun streaks by May 22 and Thomas had 2 five game streaks by May 29.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on 2 or More Streaks of 5 Consecutive Games with a Home run
Posted by Steve Lombardi on June 2, 2008
The other day, the Brewers beat the Braves, 1-0.
This got me wondering as to how many times, these days, in a baseball season, does a team win 1-0?
Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Team Batting Game Finder, it's not hard to find out. Here are the number of times teams have won 1-0, since 2004:
Year Games Link to Individual Games
+----+-----+-------------------------+
2005 40 Ind. Games
2006 39 Ind. Games
2004 35 Ind. Games
2007 34 Ind. Games
2008 14 Ind. Games
Games found: 162.
As you can see, since 2004, there are only about 35-40 games in a season where someone wins 1-0. What does that make it - about 2% of the time that someone wins a game 1-0? Pretty rare these days, huh?
Back in 1968, in that season alone, a team won a game, by a score of 1-0, 82 times. That was the year of the pitcher...indeed.
Posted in Game Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Sean Forman on May 29, 2008
At least the first in the retrosheet-era. Since 1956, no player with more than 50 career AB's has ever had a batting average of more than .300 after every at bat of their career. With his 3 for 3 start, Bruce has a shot at doing this and could even survive an 0 for 6 tonight.
There are lots of guys with 5 or fewer AB's who qualify, but these are the players with at least 5 AB's followed by the lowest BA they had at the end of any game, who also got a hit in their first career plate appearance. (a couple of them I suppose could have had a 1 for 3 followed by a 1 for 3 with a hit in their last at bat, but I'm not going to check all of them).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on May 27, 2008
Last Sunday, the Mets did something that's only been done once before in baseball history. What was it?
Playing in Colorado, holding the Rockies to 3 hits (or less) in the game - and losing the contest.
Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder, it's easy to see how many times this rare feat has been done:
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 2008-05-25 NYM COL L 1-4 8 3 4 3 5 8 1 149 88 0 0 32 25 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 3 3.38
2 1999-08-18 ATL COL L 1-4 8 3 4 4 3 7 2 126 82 0 0 30 27 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 4.50
Games found: 2.
Posted in Game Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Andy on May 26, 2008
Shane Victorino just picked up 4 runs scored in a game in which he had just 2 official ABs (plus 2 walks.) This is the 121st time it's been done (4 or more runs, 2 or fewer ABs) since 1956, and first time since the 2006 season.
The guys who did it in 2006:
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 Carlos Beltran 2006-09-30 NYM @WSN W 13-0 5 2 4 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3rd CF
2 Jim Thome 2006-07-29 CHW @BAL W 13-11 6 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3rd DH
3 Carlos Guillen 2006-07-14 DET KCR W 10-9 5 2 4 1 0 0 1 1 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5th SS
4 Alfonso Soriano 2006-06-08 WSN PHI W 5-2 4 1 4 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1st LF
5 Grady Sizemore 2006-06-03 CLE LAA W 14-2 5 2 4 1 0 0 1 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1st CF
6 Jason Varitek 2006-05-15 BOS @BAL W 11-1 5 2 4 2 0 0 1 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6th C
And the full list.
By the way, two of those times, a guy got 4 runs scored with no official ABs:
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 Rickey Henderson 1989-07-29 OAK SEA L 6-14 4 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 1st LF
2 Joe Morgan 1973-07-27 CIN ATL W 12-2 4 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2nd 2B
Posted in Game Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Andy on May 22, 2008
This is just a quickie. Phillies fans will remember this well. In 1995, Tyler Green made the All-Star team after a first half where he went 8-4 over 96 innings, allowing 80 hits and 3 HR with a 2.81 ERA. However, in the second half, he went 0-5 over 44.2 innings, allowing 77 hits and 12 HR with a 10.68 ERA. You can get this info from his 1995 splits.
That's 1 HR every 32 innings in the first half, and more than 1 HR every 4 innings in the second half. That's quite a difference.
Green had some good games in subsequent years (such as this one) but was never regained his consistency from the first half of 1995.
Posted in Splits | 2 Comments »
Posted by Chris J. on May 19, 2008
Neat thing you can do with PI - generate a list of all no-hitters from Opening Day 1956 until yesterday. So tommorrow Jon Lester will be on this.
(looks it over) Only includes regular season but with another search you can get the entire post-season list. All one of them.
Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on May 19, 2008
Recently - from May 2nd to May 12th, to be exact - the Boston Red Sox went 11 straight games with 11+ hits. Wondering what other teams have done this, since 1956, I turned to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Team Batting Streak Finder - and, here's the answer:
Team StreakStart Streak End Games W L AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
BOS 2008-05-02 2008-05-12 11 7 4 409 73 137 36 1 17 70 69 41 13 1 .335 .400 .553 .953 TBR,DET,MIN
SEA 1992-08-16 1992-08-28 11 8 3 405 70 135 26 3 12 68 72 45 14 2 .333 .402 .501 .903 MIN,BAL,BOS,CLE
STL 1979-05-27 1979-06-08 11 8 3 419 83 164 29 9 15 78 48 38 14 6 .391 .436 .611 1.047 MON,NYM,LAD,SFG,SDP
It's happened just three times since 1956: Boston this year, Seattle in 1992 and St. Louis in 1979. That's quite a feat.
Posted in Streak Finders | 3 Comments »
Posted by Andy on May 16, 2008
Here's a look more at fast starts by home run hitters.
This list is the most games with at least one homer among the team's first 40 games of a season.
Year Games Link to Individual Games
+-----------------+----+-----+-------------------------+
Jim Thome 2006 16 Ind. Games
Albert Pujols 2006 16 Ind. Games
Willie Mays 1965 16 Ind. Games
Mickey Mantle 1956 16 Ind. Games
Ken Griffey 1994 16 Ind. Games
Luis Gonzalez 2001 16 Ind. Games
Barry Bonds 2001 16 Ind. Games
Hank Aaron 1970 16 Ind. Games
Mark McGwire 1992 15 Ind. Games
Willie Mays 1964 15 Ind. Games
Ken Griffey 1997 15 Ind. Games
Barry Bonds 1996 15 Ind. Games
Barry Bonds 2000 15 Ind. Games
Albert Belle 1996 15 Ind. Games
Dick Allen 1970 15 Ind. Games
Matt Williams 1994 14 Ind. Games
Mo Vaughn 1996 14 Ind. Games
Frank Thomas 1994 14 Ind. Games
Ivan Rodriguez 2000 14 Ind. Games
Mark McGwire 2000 14 Ind. Games
Mark McGwire 1998 14 Ind. Games
Eddie Mathews 1959 14 Ind. Games
Dale Long 1956 14 Ind. Games
Carlos Lee 2006 14 Ind. Games
Frank Howard 1968 14 Ind. Games
Ken Griffey 1999 14 Ind. Games
Jason Giambi 2000 14 Ind. Games
Andres Galarraga 1998 14 Ind. Games
J.D. Drew 2001 14 Ind. Games
Jose Canseco 1999 14 Ind. Games
Jose Canseco 1990 14 Ind. Games
Unsurprisingly, it's dominated by recent guys, although some of the best home run hitters of yesteryear show up as well. Keep in mind that actual HR totals through 40 games will be higher in some cases (where the player had one or more games with 2+ HRs.)
Incidentally, Lance Berkman has the highest-ranking performance from 2008 on here, at 12 HR. But Berkman actually had 13 HR through 40 games. Chase Utley had 13 too.
Posted in Game Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Raphy on May 15, 2008
Tampa Bay has just completed a 4 game stretch against the Yankees in which they allowed no more than 2 runs in any game. I was surprised to discover that this is not the first time in Tampa history that they have had a 4 game streak of that nature. From September 24 through September 27, 2000 the Devil Rays went 4 consecutive games without allowing more than 1 run in a game. Here are the game logs:
154 Sep 24 @TOR W 6-0 9 2 0 0 1 3 0 4.97 31 127 82 0 0 1 30 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 T.Harper (4-85)
155 Sep 25 @TOR W 5-1 9 5 1 1 3 5 1 4.94 33 105 63 2 0 0 0 0 30 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 P.Wilson (8-74),E.Yan (1),R.Hernandez (2)
156 Sep 26 NYY W 2-1 9 8 1 1 2 7 1 4.92 37 129 81 0 0 0 0 0 35 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 A.Lopez (5-72),R.Hernandez (0)
157 Sep 27 NYY W 11-1 9 7 1 1 2 5 0 4.89 35 123 81 0 0 1 0 0 33 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 C.Lidle (4-65),D.Wheeler (3)
Of course 2000 was the one season from 1999 until now that their pitching wasn't totally awful. By comparison: Since Tampa Bay's inagural season in 1998, there have been 70 streaks of 5 games or longer turned in by other major league teams.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
