Twenty-three year old Clay Buchholz will pitch in his 6th big league baseball game this evening when he faces the New York Yankees at Fenway Park. 

When was the last time that the Sox sent someone this young and this green to the hill to start a game against the Yankees?  Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder, the answer is easy to find.  I set the filters for "Against NYY, At Fenway Park, as Starter, In first 6 games, (requiring BF>=1 and Age=23)" and found that the last time this happened was May 10, 1965.

On that day, in front of 11,163 fans at Fenway Park, Jim Lonborg went 8 and 2/3rds for Boston and beat the Yankees, 3-2,  in one hour and 57 minutes.  Different times, huh?

Update:  Good catch by Raphy!  By using age = 23, and not 23 or younger, I missed someone.  Rocket Clemens in 1984 was the last time - not 1965.  Mea culpa!

On each of the next three days there will be a pitcher trying to match the longest streak (post 1956) of starts without a run allowed to begin the season. The three pitchers who have not allowed a run in their first two starts of 2008 are Oliver Perez, Kyle Lohse and Ben Sheets. This in itself is unremarkable. There have been 82 pitchers who have accomplished this since 1956. However, if they can do it one more time, then they would join a small group of five pitchers to have done it for 3 starts to start a season . Lohse is scheduled to pitch on Friday, Sheets on Saturday and Perez on Sunday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tampa Bay won today hurling a 3-hit shutout against the Mariners.

Here are all their such games in history:

 Year Games Link to Individual Games
+----+-----+-------------------------+
 1999     4 Ind. Games                
 2003     3 Ind. Games                
 2000     3 Ind. Games                
 1998     3 Ind. Games                
 2006     2 Ind. Games                
 2004     2 Ind. Games                
 2001     1 Ind. Games                

These are games allowing 0 runs and 3 or fewer hits. They didn't do it once last year.

By comparison, here are the team totals from last year:

 Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 SDP 2007     7 Ind. Games                
 NYM 2007     5 Ind. Games                
 TOR 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 OAK 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 DET 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 CHW 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 CHC 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 BOS 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 BAL 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 ARI 2007     4 Ind. Games                
 STL 2007     3 Ind. Games                
 SEA 2007     3 Ind. Games                
 WSN 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 TEX 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 SFG 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 NYY 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 MIN 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 FLA 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 CIN 2007     2 Ind. Games                
 PIT 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 PHI 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 LAD 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 LAA 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 KCR 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 COL 2007     1 Ind. Games                
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
 CLE 2007     1 Ind. Games                
 ATL 2007     1 Ind. Games                

In addition to the Rays, the Brewers and the Astros didn't do it in 2007.

This year, only the Rays, Royals, and Nationals have done it so far.

Sports Reference Blog » BIG Split Update on Baseball-Reference.com

Details on big updates to the splits.

At the moment, Dontrelle Willis has allowed no hits and 7 walks in his start. Here are the leaders for most walks allowed in a no-hitter:

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/ESrS

Jim Maloney leads the list with 10 walks.

Did you know that Roger Erickson, in 1978, pitched in 37 games and allowed at least one earned run in every one of those games?  It's true.  And, it's the record, for most games in a row, starting at the start of a season, where a pitcher allowed at least one ER (per game) - since 1956.  Thanks Play Index.

This is off-site and a bit off-topic, but very interesting nonetheless:

http://www.mfooz.com/bblog/?p=179

It's some fascinating data. Who has a theory?

File this under: Silly but fun things that you can do with Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index (Pitching Event Finder), Excel, and a few minutes time.  (In addition to: Shameless cross promotion not so cleverly hidden in a PI example...)

In the Yankees game last night, Mike Mussina and La Troy Hawkins both allowed hits on an 0-2 count.

This had me wondering: How many 0-2 hits have Yankees pitchers allowed since I started writing WasWatching.com (on April 20, 2005)?

Here’s the answer: 222 hits allowed on 0-2 counts.

Randy Johnson allowed 35 such hits and Mike Mussina, including last night, has allowed 30 (in this time).

Click here to see the entire list of 222 hits allowed.

Most Opening Days with a Hit - Baseball-Reference PI

With the 2008 opening days safely into the books, we've compiled a list of the players with the most opening days with hits. This is from the batting gamelog finder. Set the criteria to H >= 1, the sort by to Players w/ most matching Career and then the team's games in the bottom right column to 1 (= opening day).

Tonight, Alex Rios extended his hitting streak against the Yankees to 21 games. This ties him with Nomar Garciaparra , Paul Molitor and Harold Baines for the longest such streaks since 1956. (The Rios number has not yet been updated.)

Read the rest of this entry »