The Stat of the Day blog has gotten some nice press over here, and one of the commenters asked for all pitchers who hit homers while playing in the American League. Before I look it up, I'd have to guess that it was fairly "common" before the DH rule, roughly as common as was seen in the National League.

Let's see: Read the rest of this entry »

Some fans may not remember the only time in history that a team has led off a game with three consecutive homers:

It was done by the Padres in 1987 when Marvell Wynne, Tony Gwynn, and John Kruk hit consecutive dingers in the bottom of the first. Let's take a look at the box score. Incidentally, I found it by first going to Wynne's PI event log for homers, then limiting it to 1st-inning homers, of which he had only 3. From there it was easy to find. (Knowing that Wynne was one of the guys who hit a homer helped too.)

The three homers didn't help the Padres win, who dropped to 1-6 after this game. The Giants went on to win the division and lost the NLCS to the Cardinals.

By the way, Topps commemorated the three consecutive homers leading off the game with a series of cards on the bottom of boxes for 1988 packs of cards:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees lost their game yesterday, by a score of 13-9.  Thanks to Baseball-Reference's Play Index Team Batting Gamelog Finder, we can see that it's just the 20th time since 1996 (aka the "Torre Era") that the Bronx Bombers have scored 9+ runs in a game and lost:

  Cnt Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt  PA  AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS LOB Batrs 
 ----+-------------+---+----+-------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+----- 
    1 2007-08-02    NYY  CHW L  9-13  43  41  9 15  2  0  2   9  2   0 10   0  0  0   0   0  2  0   7    11 
    2 2007-05-04    NYY  SEA L 11-15  47  41 11 16  3  0  2  11  6   0  6   0  0  0   0   2  0  0   9    12  

    3 2006-06-17    NYY @WSN L  9-11  46  42  9 15  4  0  3   9  3   1  7   1  0  0   1   1  0  0  10    17  

    4 2005-09-27    NYY @BAL L  9-17  44  39  9 12  1  0  3   8  5   0  8   0  0  0   2   2  1  0   8    10  

    5 2004-07-24    NYY @BOS L 10-11  46  42 10 12  4  0  1   9  3   0  7   1  0  0   3   1  0  0   9    10 
    6 2004-07-03    NYY @NYM L  9-10  44  36  9 12  4  0  2   8  6   1  6   0  1  1   2   2  0  1   8    18  

    7 2003-08-11    NYY @KCR L  9-12  43  38  9 15  8  0  2   8  3   0  5   1  1  0   0   1  2  1   7     9  

    8 2002-06-20    NYY @COL L 11-14  48  46 11 19  5  1  3  11  0   0  9   0  0  2   1   2  0  0   7    19  

    9 2000-07-13    NYY  FLA L  9-11  47  38  9 12  3  0  1   9  8   0  8   0  0  1   0   0  0  0  11    10 
   10 2000-06-17    NYY  CHW L  9-10  45  41  9 15  3  0  1   9  4   0  9   0  0  0   0   1  1  0   9     9  

   11 1999-09-11    NYY  BOS L 10-11  49  42 10 12  0  0  2   9  7   0  5   0  0  0   3   0  1  0  12    14  

   12 1998-08-23    NYY @TEX L 10-12  40  38 10 13  3  0  4   9  2   0 11   0  0  0   0   2  0  0   3     9 
   13 1998-05-27    NYY @CHW L  9-12  43  34  9  6  1  1  1   6  9   0  7   0  0  0   3   1  0  1   7     9  

   14 1997-09-23    NYY @CLE L  9-10  43  39  9 13  2  0  1   9  4   0  7   0  0  0   0   1  0  0   7    11 
   15 1997-09-05    NYY  BAL L  9-13  43  41  9 16  5  0  1   9  2   0  5   0  0  0   0   1  0  0   7     9 
   16 1997-04-08    NYY @ANA L  9-10  54  50  9 19  6  1  2   9  2   0  7   0  0  2   0   1  0  0   9    10  

   17 1996-09-19(2) NYY  BAL L  9-10  41  37  9 11  1  0  4   9  4   0  9   0  0  0   0   1  0  0   5    13 
   18 1996-09-03    NYY @OAK L  9-10  43  36  9 12  1  0  2   9  5   0  6   0  1  1   0   0  1  0   7    12 
   19 1996-08-18    NYY  SEA L 12-13  60  53 12 19  5  0  1  12  7   1 11   0  0  0   0   2  0  0  12    13 
   20 1996-07-17    NYY @BOS L 11-12  52  45 11 19  4  0  3  11  6   0  6   0  0  1   0   0  1  0  14    13

In the "Ouch!" Department, in 6 of these 20 losses, the Yankees lost the game by one run.

Further, the game yesterday was just the 8th time since 1996 where the Yankees have scored 9+ runs in a game at home and lost the game.

Lastly, in these 20 losses, 3 times Jeff Nelson was charged with the loss - while, Hideki Irabu, El Duque Hernandez, and Mo Rivera took two of these 20, each, as losses as well.

Twice, Nelson blew the game in the last frame - as did Rivera in both of his losses.  In fact, of the 20 losses, there were 6 times in total where the Yankees lost the game with their last pitcher of the contest on the hill.

On the brighter-side, for Yankees fans, in the "Torre Era," the Yankees have scored 9+ runs in a game and won 337 times.

A record of 337-20 since 1996 tells you that, most times, if the Yankees score 9+ runs in a game, they're going to win it.

A lot of folks were interested to read that Julio Franco has faced 1167 pitchers in his career.

I started wondering to what degree that number was affected by his era. Right off, we know that Franco's plate appearances are spread over a larger number of years than most other players. He first came up in 1982, and he didn't play in American baseball in 1995, 1998, or 2000 (as I recall, he spent some of that "time off" playing in Japan, and some in Mexico.) Since pitchers are constantly coming and going in baseball, spreading out PAs over more years definitely means more unique pitchers faced.

Anyway:

Read the rest of this entry »

Love or hate the Yankees, you should find this interesting:

What's the only team since 1957 to hit at least 5 HR over three consecutive games? Read the rest of this entry »

Here's a list of all the times since 2000 that one team has hit at least 5 homers in 2 consecutive games:

 Team    StreakStart  Streak End Games   W   L    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SO   BB   SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Opponents
+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 NYY      2007-07-31  2007-08-01     2    2   0    71   24   24   3   0  13   24    5    7    0   1  .338  .400  .930 1.330 CHW
 DET      2006-04-05  2006-04-06     2    2   0    83   24   31   6   0  12   22   12    5    0   0  .373  .411  .880 1.291 KCR,TEX
 NYY      2004-07-11  2004-07-15     2    2   0    71   15   20   2   0  10   15   15    3    0   0  .282  .311  .732 1.043 TBD,DET
 CHW      2004-06-08  2004-06-09     2    1   1    79   24   29   9   0  11   24   12    9    0   0  .367  .438  .899 1.337 PHI
 ANA      2003-06-03  2003-06-04     2    2   0    89   26   39   4   0  13   26   10    8    0   0  .438  .485  .921 1.406 MON
 CHC      2002-08-10  2002-08-11     2    2   0    84   27   33   4   0  11   27    8    5    0   0  .393  .440  .833 1.273 COL
 BOS      2002-07-21  2002-07-23     2    1   1    77   30   30   5   0  12   29    9   10    1   1  .390  .460  .922 1.382 NYY,TBD
 LAD      2001-04-06  2001-04-07     2    2   0    67   20   22   5   0  10   20   15    5    2   0  .328  .384  .851 1.235 SFG

No team since 2000 has done it three times in a row, although the Yankees have a shot today against the White Sox. Amazing that they hit 13 HR in the last 2 games and ARod didn't hit a single one of them.

Here's a list of all pitchers, so far in 2007, with at least 50 IP and no more than 6 ER allowed:

  Cnt                         IP   ER Year Age Tm  Lg  G  GS CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV  H   R   BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+---+-----+---+----+---+---+--+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Hideki Okajima         52.2   6 2007  31 BOS AL  48  0  0   0 10  2  0 1.000  4  31   6  12  44   1.03  440  3  198  183  1  1   1   0   3   0   4   1  0  0  0  0  .169  .221  .235  .456   19  777  505

Not too shabby for the guy who was a throw-in to help Daisuke Matsuzaka adjust to American life. (Search done using the B-R.com Play Index Pitching Season Finder)

Using the PI Team Batting Game Finder, I searched for games in which all of any given team's hits were home runs. I did this by setting hits = 1 and HR = 1, then hits =2 and HR = 2, etc.

All data is 1957-present.

Here's a summary. Click on the links to see the individual games for each case. Read the rest of this entry »

48-year-old Julio Franco was released by Atlanta yesterday to make room for their new acquisitions.

Here's a bit of trivia for you. How many different pitchers do you think Franco has faced in his career?

Really think about it and make a guess before clicking past the jump for the answer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most inning pitched by a pitcher making relief appearances in at least 90% of his games, from the start of 2006 until now:

  Cnt Player              **IP**   From  To   Ages   G   GS  CG SHO  GF  W   L   W-L%  SV   H    R   ER   BB   SO    ERA  ERA+  HR   BF  IBB HBP  BK  WP Teams         BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  SH  SF  2B  3B GDP  SB   CS  Pk

+----+-----------------+----------+----+----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+---+----+----+----+----+----+------+----+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+---+

    1 Scott Proctor        156.2   2006 2007 29-30  135   0   0   0  22   8   9  .471   1  142   68   63   62  126   3.62  120  20   671   9   5   0   5 NYY          .241  .313  .396  .709   88   3  12  25   3  10   11   5   0
    2 Oscar Villarreal     150.2   2006 2007 24-25   96   4   0   0  17  10   1  .909   0  146   68   61   47  108   3.64  119  18   645   8   8   0   5 ATL          .254  .315  .410  .725   94   7   8  28   4  12    6   1   1
    3 Jon Rauch            148.1   2006 2007 27-28  141   0   0   0  38  11   7  .611   5  126   62   58   52  131   3.52  123  17   615   9   2   1   6 WSN          .230  .294  .373  .667   79   2  10  22   3   6   11   4   0
    4 Aaron Heilman        143.2   2006 2007 27-28  126   0   0   0  35  10   8  .556   0  121   62   57   38  114   3.57  119  12   586   3   6   0   7 NYM          .228  .286  .355  .641   73   9   3  23   4  10   12   0   0
    5 Scot Shields         142     2006 2007 30-31  122   0   0   0  23  10  10  .500   4  107   44   42   44  132   2.66  163  13   563   4   2   0  10 LAA          .209  .273  .326  .599   59   3   1  21   0  16   11   0   1

Highest slugging percentage for the 1979 Yankees:

  Cnt Player             **SLG**  Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   OPS  Positions

+----+-----------------+---------+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+

    1 Oscar Gamble         .735   1979  29 NYY AL  36 126 113  21  44  4  1 11  32  13   1  13   0   0   0   1   0  0  .389  .452 1.187 *7/D
    2 Jim Spencer          .593   1979  31 NYY AL 106 336 295  60  85 15  3 23  53  38  11  25   0   1   2  12   0  2  .288  .367  .960 *D3
    3 Reggie Jackson       .544   1979  33 NYY AL 131 537 465  78 138 24  2 29  89  65   3 107   2   0   5  17   9  8  .297  .382  .926 *9/D
    4 George Scott         .500   1979  35 NYY AL  16  47  44   9  14  3  1  1   6   2   0   7   0   0   1   0   1  0  .318  .340  .840 *D/3
    5 Cliff Johnson        .453   1979  31 NYY AL  28  76  64  11  17  6  0  2   6  10   4   7   0   1   1   0   0  0  .266  .360  .813 *D/2

See what I mean? Proctor & Gamble go together like...uhhh....Proctor & Gamble.