• Before yesterday, Jake Peavy was 3-0 in 4 starts this season against Arizona, allowing 5 ER in 26.1 innings for a 1.71 ERA, with 8 walks and 45 (!!) strikeouts. Yesterday, he gave up 8 ER alone in just 4 innings.

• Carlos Pena set the record for RBIs in a game by a Devil Ray. He's already got the Tampa Bay record for HR in a season. With 13 RBIs, he'll have that season record too. Not bad for a guy who's been traded or released 5 times.

• The use of the Play Index by baseball journalists is becoming quite prevalent. Here's an example by Peter Abraham of the Journal News.

A reader asked, so I'll post the answer here.

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I had to dig into the db directly to answer this one.

 | name_common       | date_game  | inning | HRs |
+-------------------+------------+--------+-----+
| Julio Lugo        | 2006-07-22 |      5 |   2 |
| Juan Rivera       | 2004-06-19 |      2 |   2 |
| Reggie Sanders    | 2003-08-20 |      5 |   2 |
| Mark Bellhorn     | 2002-08-29 |      4 |   2 |
| Aaron Boone       | 2002-08-09 |      1 |   2 |
| Carl Everett      | 2002-07-26 |      7 |   2 |
| Nomar Garciaparra | 2002-07-23 |      3 |   2 |
| Jared Sandberg    | 2002-06-11 |      5 |   2 |
| Bret Boone        | 2002-05-02 |      1 |   2 |
| Mike Cameron      | 2002-05-02 |      1 |   2 |
| Eric Karros       | 2000-08-22 |      6 |   2 |
| Fernando Tatis    | 1999-04-23 |      3 |   2 |
| Gary Sheffield    | 1997-07-13 |      4 |   2 |
| Mike Lansing      | 1997-05-07 |      6 |   2 |
| Mark McGwire      | 1996-09-22 |      5 |   2 |
| Dave Nilsson      | 1996-05-17 |      6 |   2 |
| Sammy Sosa        | 1996-05-16 |      7 |   2 |
| Jeff King         | 1996-04-30 |      4 |   2 |
| Jeff King         | 1995-08-08 |      2 |   2 |
| Jeff Bagwell      | 1994-06-24 |      6 |   2 |
| Joe Carter        | 1993-10-03 |      2 |   2 |
| Carlos Baerga     | 1993-04-08 |      7 |   2 |
| Ellis Burks       | 1990-08-27 |      4 |   2 |
| Dale Murphy       | 1989-07-27 |      6 |   2 |
| Andre Dawson      | 1985-09-24 |      5 |   2 |
| Von Hayes         | 1985-06-11 |      1 |   2 |
| Ray Knight        | 1980-05-13 |      5 |   2 |
| Andre Dawson      | 1978-07-30 |      3 |   2 |
| Cliff Johnson     | 1977-06-30 |      8 |   2 |
| Willie McCovey    | 1977-06-27 |      6 |   2 |
| Lee May           | 1974-04-29 |      6 |   2 |
| John Boccabella   | 1973-07-06 |      6 |   2 |
| Willie McCovey    | 1973-04-12 |      4 |   2 |
| Rick Reichardt    | 1966-04-30 |      8 |   2 |
| Joe Pepitone      | 1962-05-23 |      8 |   2 |
| Jim Lemon         | 1959-09-05 |      3 |   2 |

Yes, that is right, Cameron and Boone both had two home runs in the first inning of their May 2nd, 2002 game.

Who is the only player in major league history to have at least 30 HR and 80 RBI in a season with fewer than 400 plate appearances?

Read down the page for a clue, and click through for the answer.

CLUE: He did it in 2005

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Tim Kurkjian mentions that Curtis Granderson once got 5 hits in 5 at-bats without scoring or driving in a run.

Here's the full list of times it's been done since 1957:

  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 Curtis Granderson 2005-09-18    DET @LAA L  3-5   5  5  0  5  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st CF
    2 Jason Kendall     1999-05-03    PIT  SFG W  9-8   5  5  0  5  2  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 5th C
    3 Jeff Blauser      1996-06-10    ATL @NYM L  3-8   5  5  0  5  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 6th SS
    4 Jose Vizcaino     1995-09-23    NYM @FLA L  3-4   5  5  0  5  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd SS
    5 Rafael Palmeiro   1990-06-30    TEX @BOS W  6-5   5  5  0  5  2  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 1B
    6 Darren Daulton    1989-09-20    PHI @CHC W  9-8   5  5  0  5  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th C
    7 Richie Hebner     1978-07-30    PHI @CIN L  3-5   5  5  0  5  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  1 5th 1B
    8 Cesar Tovar       1974-08-14    TEX  MIL L  5-6   5  5  0  5  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  1 2nd LF
    9 Matty Alou        1970-08-19    PIT  SFG L  4-7   5  5  0  5  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st CF
   10 Pete Rose         1970-07-10(2) CIN @ATL W  3-1   5  5  0  5  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st RF
   11 Lee Thomas        1961-09-05(1) LAA @KCA L  3-7   5  5  0  5  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd RF

Nobody has ever done 6-for-6 with no runs or RBI.

4-for-4 with no runs or RBI has been done 230 times. Here are the 2007 occurrences:

  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 Alexi Casilla     2007-09-03    MIN  CLE L  0-5   4  4  0  4  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st 2B
    2 Emil Brown        2007-08-25    KCR  CLE L  4-9   4  4  0  4  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 5th RF
    3 Michael Cuddyer   2007-07-18    MIN  DET L  2-3   5  4  0  4  0  0  0   0  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th RF
    4 Damian Miller     2007-07-07    MIL @WSN L  4-5   4  4  0  4  0  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 6th C
    5 Kenny Lofton      2007-06-29    TEX @BOS L  1-2   5  4  0  4  0  0  0   0  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  4  0 1st CF
    6 Derrek Lee        2007-06-15    CHC  SDP W  4-1   4  4  0  4  3  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 1B
    7 Edwin Encarnacion 2007-05-31    CIN @HOU L  2-10  4  4  0  4  1  0  0   0  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 7th 3B
    8 Troy Tulowitzki   2007-04-30    COL @SFG L  5-9   5  4  0  4  0  0  0   0  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd SS

UPDATE: The 200-hit season by decade numbers were wrong and are corrected below. 

Ichiro got to 200 hits again 2 nights ago, and here are some interesting numbers for you:

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A couple more thoughts on hard-working pitchers.

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Ten-SO games from most recent to oldest. - Baseball-Reference PI

After reading the MySQL performance blog, I realized I was making things a bit too hard when people asked for the total number of matching outputs. At the bottom of the output you now get the total number of games or seasons that matched your criteria.

Using Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index Team Pitching Gamelog Finder, and setting it for "For 2007, Playing in the AL, (requiring pitchers>=4), sorted by greatest number of games matching selected criteria in a game" tells us how many times each team in the A.L., to date, has used 4+ pitchers in a game this season.  Here's the list:

Tm  Year Games Link to Individual Games
+---+----+-----+-------------------------+
NYY 2007    91 Ind. Games               
BAL 2007    90 Ind. Games               
TBD 2007    88 Ind. Games               
TEX 2007    81 Ind. Games               
CHW 2007    80 Ind. Games               
BOS 2007    80 Ind. Games               
SEA 2007    77 Ind. Games               
MIN 2007    77 Ind. Games               
OAK 2007    76 Ind. Games               
DET 2007    73 Ind. Games               
TOR 2007    70 Ind. Games               
KCR 2007    69 Ind. Games               
CLE 2007    66 Ind. Games               
LAA 2007    62 Ind. Games               

It's interesting to see the Yankees as the "worst" in the league here - just ahead of the Orioles and the Devil Rays.  It's probably a few things that leads to high numbers in this list:  Ineffective starters and relievers and/or a manager with a quick hook.

To date, the Yankees have gone 46-45 in those 91 games where they used 4 pitchers or more.  New York's overall ERA in those 91 games is 5.48.  But, it's 3.57 in the games that they've won and it's 7.51 in the games that they've lost.

Just for the heck of it, I used Play Index to run this Pitching Game Finder query:  "For 2007, Playing for NYY, Team Lost, (requiring ER>=5 and pitchers>=4), sorted by greatest number of games matching selected criteria in a game" and it gave me 38 games where the Yankees lost, used 4 pitchers or more, and allowed 5 ER or more. 

The results show that this happened 12 times in April, 7 times in May, 5 times in June, 5 times in July, and 9 times in August.   Those 19 times before June 1st tell the story as to why the Yankees got off to a 22-29 start this season:  Too many games where the pitching staff did not get the job done.

Random thing to check on -- how to NL pitchers compare with AL pitchers when it comes to CG in the DH era? (That's 1973-2007 for those curious).

Well, looking at the rival leaderboards, American Leaguers complete far more than their NL counterparts.

Nearly twice as many have completed 100.  Over twice as many (65-26) have completed 50.  While 197 AL pitchers have completed 15, only 144 NL guys have.

Pretty dang substantial if you ask me.