A bit of breaking news as MLB.com reports that Craig Biggio is retiring at the end of the season.

Chris had a nice post on Biggio when he got his 3000th hit.

Biggio is one of my all-time favorite players. Although his numbers have been down in the last 6 years, for his first 13 full seasons, he was quite a consistent player. Some bits and pieces about Biggio:

• He was an All-Star both as a catcher and as a 2B.
• He extended his career and his value by also learning to play the outfield, with over 300 games played in LF and CF.
• He played in 40 post-season games, including the 4 World Series games in 2005.
• He needs 3 hit-by-pitches to break the all-time record. Although this conjures up images of Bad News Bears, his aggressiveness at the plate and willingness to play through pain can not be ignored.
• He ranks in the top 50 all-time for a number of offensive categories: doubles (6th), total bases (31st), hits (24th), runs (14th), games (21st), HBP (2nd), and a few others.

Personally, I don't understand why there is a debate about whether he's a Hall of Famer. How could the guy with the 14th most runs scored ever not be in the Hall of Fame?

Aaron Harang pitched 10 innings last night.

It's just one of four such occasions in the oo's:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+
    1 Aaron Harang      2007-07-23    CIN  MIL W  2-1  GS-10     10    7  1  1  0 10  1 121  87   84       37 37  1  0   0   0  0  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.90
    2 Roy Halladay      2007-04-13    TOR  DET W  2-1  CG 10 ,W  10    6  1  1  0  2  1 107  70   78       35 35  2  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.90 

    3 Mark Mulder       2005-04-23    STL  HOU W  1-0  SHO10 ,W  10    5  0  0  0  5  0 101  75   87       33 33  0  0   0   0  0  0   1  0  1  1  0  0   0.00 

    4 Roy Halladay      2003-09-06    TOR  DET W  1-0  SHO10 ,W  10    3  0  0  1  5  0  99  70   90       35 33  1  0   0   1  0  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   0.00

As you can see, Roy "The Toy Boy" Halladay has done it twice. Interestingly, Harang is the only one not to get a decision, as the game went 12 innings.

Read the rest of this entry »

My post a couple of days ago about Padres players missing the cycle reminded me of something. I remember when I was a kid, listening to some post-game comments after a baseball game, the announcer saying that one of the players had "fallen a triple short of the cycle." It wasn't until a few years later that I realized what a silly comment that was. Triples are pretty rare, and I bet that hundreds of guys each year get at least one single, one double, and one homer in a game.

I've always wondered exactly which type of hit is the one missing most often when a player is one hit shy of the cycle. For the last several decades of MLB, I imagine it MUST be the triple.

I decided to use the PI to do a little sleuthing. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last month, I've become entranced watching Michael Barrett and  his complete and total inability to draw a walk.  It's been a month since the Pads acquired him.  He has yet to draw a walk.  He didn't get a free pass in his last 25 PA with the Cubs.  He's two games away from the 100 PA marks since his last free pass.  With yesterday's game, he now has a new personal, uh, "best" for longest stretch without drawing a walk.

So this gets me to wondering, where does this put him among the hacker legends?

Rey Ordonez couldn't do anything with the stick.  He rarely walked 30 times a year.  But he never went this long without walking.

Remember Juan Samuel?  Really talented player for a few years, but the knock against him was always that he didn't walk enough.  He never had a stretch as bad as Barrett's current one, though.

One man formerly compared to Samuel a lot was a young Alfonso Soriano.  Twice he went 100+ PA without walking.  The difference between him and Barrett, is that Soriano wasn't doing it in his 30s.  That's partially why it's so striking.  While Barrett never walked much, he'd walk every 4-5 games.  He's completely lost that part of his plate discipline.

Gary DiSarcina is a legendary hacker.  He  played regularly for several years but never walked more than 21 times in a season.  He only had 3 stretches of 100+ PA without walking.   Sure, one of those is a stratospheric 206 AB, 56 game stretch, but Barrett's threatening the other two streaks.

Ozzie Guillen had 8 - count 'em 8 - stretches of 100+ PA without a walk.  Heck, he had one over 200.   Guillen mocks Barrett's puny totals.

Last but certainly not least is the man himself, Shawon Dunston.  He took a 3-ball count as a personal insult.  He, insanely, not only had 8 stretches of 100+ PA, but included two over 200, and the all-time record (as far as I know anyway) of 133 Games and 308 AB without a walk.  Barrett won't last that long.

Like Barrett, but unlike most of the guys listed here, Dunston got worse as he got older.

Well, I started off wanting to see just how impressive or meaningful Shelley Duncan's start with the Yankees has been, and instead I learned something about Carlos Lee. Duncan has had at least 1 RBI in each of the three games he's played in since he came up, with 3 HR and 7 RBI overall.

Using the PI Batting Streak finder, I set it to years 2000 to present, set only for the start of a player's career, and then most consecutive games with at least 1 RBI.

The results: Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Howard, PHI NL, had another great game today (Sunday 7/22), which gives him the following active streaks going into Monday:

29 consecutive games reaching base safely
5 consecutive games reaching base 3 or more times
2 consecutive games reaching base 4 or more times
9 consecutive plate appearances reaching base safely (not counting a sac. fly he had on Sunday)

Let's see how those compare to the best marks by Phillies in the last 51 seasons:

Howard: 29 consecutive games reaching base safely.  Last 51 years: 56 games in a row, by Mike Schmidt 1981-1982: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/xM38 .  Ed Delahanty (1896) also reached in 56 straight games for the Phils.  I guess Howard still has a ways to go there just to match the franchise record, let alone approach the MLB record of 84 games in a row reaching base (Ted Williams, 1949).  Howard has also set a new career-high already with his 29 game on-base streak: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/ZAyr .

Howard: 5 consecutive games reaching base 3+ times.  Last 51 years: 8 games by Chase Utley over 2005/2006: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/nR8Q .  The franchise record is 10 games in a row, by Billy Hamilton in 1894.  Not only is Hamilton's streak the Phils' record, but it's also tied for the MLB record (Ty Cobb, 1925, also had 10 straight).

Howard: 2 consecutive games reaching base 4+ times.  Last 51 years: 3 games in a row, by Chase Utley (again), this time in Sept 2006: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/d7zZ .  The franchise record is 4 games in a row, by Billy Hamilton (in 1893 and twice again in 1894) and Joe Sullivan in 1894.  The MLB record is 5 games, accomplished most recently by Joe Mauer, MIN AL, in 2006.

Howard: 9 consecutive times reaching base safely.  Club record: 14 straight times on base safely, by Billy Hamilton in 1893.  The MLB record for these fascinating streaks is 17, by Frank Ward in 1893.  Ted Williams holds the modern record of 16 straight times on base safely in 1957.  You can't do this kind of search using PI yet, but it's still a pretty amazing streak!

Despite an amazing stretch of games, Howard still has a way to go to match even his own team's records for on-base streaks, let alone the all-time Major League Records .  If you're interested in streaks like these, check out my new blog at http://www.hitting-streaks.com.

The Yankees scored 21 runs today - after scoring 17 the day before.  When was the last time that a team scored 17+ runs for two games in a row?  Thanks to the Baseball-Reference PI, Team Batting Streak Finder, we know 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+-------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

 TEX      2002-07-31  2002-08-01     2    2   0    86   36   41   9   0  10   36    8    8    0   1  .477  .526  .930 1.456 NYY,BOS

 SEA      2000-04-15  2000-04-16     2    2   0    91   36   38   9   1   8   34   13   13    1   1  .418  .500  .802 1.302 TOR

Texas did it against the Yankees and Boston in 2002. Seattle did it at Toronto for two games in 2000.

So, with the Yankees doing it to the Devil Rays on back-to-back days in the Bronx, we have something that's not been done in at least the last 50 years: A team scoring 17+ runs, against the same team, for two days in a row at home.

I was just reading the AP recap of last night's Phillies-Padres game.

The very last line says:

"Bradley is the 302nd Padres player to miss the cycle by one hit and the 15th to miss by a double."

And I thought to myself...how interesting. Turns out that's easy to find with the PI Game Finder. Set the player's team to the Padres, set singles, triples, and HR all greater than or equal to 1, and doubles to zero, and you get the full list of 15:

  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 Milton Bradley    2007-07-21    SDP  PHI L  4-12  5  5  2  3  0  1  1   2  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd LF        

    2 Xavier Nady       2005-04-09    SDP  PIT W 11-3   5  5  2  4  0  1  1   4  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 6th CF        

    3 Ron Gant          2002-08-08    SDP  PHI W  7-4   5  5  1  3  0  1  1   4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 5th LF        

    4 Carlos Hernandez  1997-08-17    SDP  CHC L  5-6   4  4  2  3  0  1  1   3  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th C         
    5 Steve Finley      1997-07-13    SDP @COL W 13-11  5  5  2  3  0  1  1   4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   1  0  0 5th CF        

    6 Steve Finley      1995-08-11(2) SDP  STL W  5-2   5  5  2  4  0  1  1   3  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st CF        

    7 Jeff Gardner      1993-07-20    SDP  NYM W  4-1   4  4  1  3  0  1  1   1  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 1st 2B        

    8 Rob Nelson        1989-06-14    SDP  CIN W  4-2   4  3  1  3  0  1  1   1  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  1 6th 1B        

    9 Kevin McReynolds  1986-09-20    SDP @HOU L  6-10  4  4  1  3  0  1  1   3  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th CF        

   10 Gene Richards     1981-05-23    SDP @ATL L  6-7   6  6  2  3  0  1  1   2  0   0  0   0  0  0   1   0  0  0 3rd LF        

   11 Kurt Bevacqua     1979-07-31    SDP @ATL W 10-3   6  6  2  3  0  1  1   1  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 2B        
   12 Gene Tenace       1979-07-11    SDP @PHI W  7-3   5  4  2  3  0  1  1   2  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 5th C         

   13 Enzo Hernandez    1972-10-03    SDP @SFG L  4-7   5  5  2  4  0  1  1   2  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd SS        

   14 Nate Colbert      1971-07-09(2) SDP  CHC W  7-2   4  4  2  3  0  1  1   4  0   0  1   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 4th 1B        

   15 Nate Colbert      1970-08-06    SDP  HOU L  6-8   5  4  4  3  0  1  1   3  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 6th 1B        

It's amazing that no Padres player has ever hit for the cycle. The team they played last night, the Phils, have had three since 1957, found with a similar PI Game Finder search:

  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 David Bell        2004-06-28    PHI  MON W 14-6   5  4  2  4  1  1  1   6  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 6th 3B        

    2 Gregg Jefferies   1995-08-25    PHI  LAD W 17-4   5  5  4  4  1  1  1   4  0   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 3rd 1B        

    3 Johnny Callison   1963-06-27    PHI @PIT W 13-4   6  5  2  4  1  1  1   4  1   0  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 2nd RF        

Willie Harris, now of the Braves, got 6 hits in a 9-inning game yesterday. This is an easy search to do on the PI Game Finder.

The last 15 fellow to do it are: Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the White Sox walked in three straight which led a user to ask if this had happened before. I was surprised to see it was as common as it was. Since 1957, three runners (not necessarily consecutively) had been walked in in a game 191 times. Three consecutively is a surprisingly high percentage of these. The following are all of the instances where it was consecutive. The numbers are the event numbers of the play where it happened. I think the first game is the canonical example of "losing the strike zone." You can't do this in the Play Index at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »