Bear with me for a little fishing expedition here.

I went looking at Mike Schmidt's batter-vs-pitcher PI page. I thought "Let's see who Michael Jack really beat up on over the years" and sorted it by OPS. Since I didn't set a minimum number of PAs, the top of the list were the 7 guys who Schmidt had just one at-bat against, hitting a homer in each one (he had some walks as well against some guys.) That gives you a 5.000 OPS...a 1.000 OBP plus a 4.000 SLG. It's not a terribly meaningful number as it's based on just one at-bat, but I found it interested that Schmitty victimized 7 different pitchers this way:

                    PA  AB  H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG   **OPS**   SH  SF IBB HBP GDP G_miss YR_miss
+-----------------+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+---------+---+---+---+---+---+------+-------+
 Dave Beard          1   1   1  0  0  1   3   0   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0
 Mike Dupree         1   1   1  0  0  1   2   0   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0
 Ken Holtzman        2   1   1  0  0  1   2   1   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0
 John Littlefield    3   1   1  0  0  1   2   2   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   2   0   0
 Dave Meads          1   1   1  0  0  1   1   0   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0
 Craig Skok          1   1   1  0  0  1   1   0   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0
 Milt Wilcox         1   1   1  0  0  1   2   0   0 1.000 1.000 4.000   5.000     0   0   0   0   0

It got me to thinking... Read the rest of this entry »

Here's the list of players since 2000 who hit a homer in their first major league game. Read the rest of this entry »

Here's a very simple search with interesting results. I went to the Pitching Streak Finder, and simply entered W = 0, meaning to find the longest streak of games pitched in without any wins. Obviously this includes no-decisions, and is 1951-present.

I would never have guessed the top name on the list: Read the rest of this entry »

This isn't a PI feature, and hence a little outside the main goal of this blog, but cut me some slack here for a minute.  I just noticed something really cool about this website.

You can find out, very easily, total team batting or pitching lines over any period of time in a season that you feel like.  Here's how the Cubs have hit and pitched since getting hot in early June.  So if you want to compare how two teams have hit over any random period of time, you can do it with no problem.

If you really want to get super-sabermetrical with it, you can calculate your own third order wins for all teams within endpoints of your choosing.

Man, I love Tony Gwynn. I've never been a Padres fan but have always been a devoted Gwynn fan. With him entering the Hall of Fame in a little over a week, I thought I'd point out some of his accomplishments.

Although he could be criticized as a fairly one-dimensional player later in his career, it's tough to argue against 4 straight seasons above .400 OBP from age 34 through age 37.

But what's amazing to me about Gwynn is... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the fun things about using Baseball-Reference.com's Player Index (PI) Batting Game Logs is the ability to use the "sum" feature. This is where you can sum any set of Game Log rows by clicking anywhere (not red or blue) on the first and last rows of the selection.

I know that Johnny Damon has been slumping lately - at least that what his batting average would suggest.  And, Yankees fans want to know why Joe Torre is keeping him in the line-up...or, at the least, why Torre is batting him lead-off.

However, using the "sum" feature in PI's Batting Game Logs shows us that Johnny Damon, while not getting hits, has been getting on base for the Yankees over his last 17 games:

Johnny Damon batting from career game #1771 (Jun 28, 2007) to game #1787 (Jul 18, 2007)

  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS

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

  17  79  62  12  12  1  0  0   3  16   0   5   0   0   1   0   4  1  .194  .354  .210  .564

Note his OBA of .354 here.  Sure, that's not great - but, it doesn't stink.  And, given the present other options, outside of Damon, it's Torre's best choice for DH (now) in his line-up.  When you look at it this way, you can see that Johnny Damon has been adding some value to the Yankees line-up since New York ended their 7-game losing streak on June 28th.

Despite starting only 10 games so far this month, Aaron Rowand (PHI NL) has already had one of the most interesting months in hitting history.

Just check out these batting lines:

July 6: 3-for-4, 3 doubles

July 14: 4-for-4, 3 doubles, home run

July 17: 5-for-6, 3 doubles, home run

That gives him three separate 3-double games this month.  We can use the PI Game Finder to see who (in the past 51 seasons) has had the most 3-double games in a season:

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/23Tf   

....Rowand joins Mike Lowell (2006) as the only guys since 1957 to have three 3-double games in an entire season, but note that all of Rowand's games have been in a 12-day stretch!

This gives Rowand four career 3-double games; the only active players with more are:

Mike Lowell, who has six 3-double games: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/a22u    

Miguel Tejada, who has five 3-double games: http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/JSeS 

Also, with three doubles and a homer on both July 14 and July 17, Rowand has two games with 4 extra-base hits (XBH) this season.  Only a handful of other players have ever matched this:

MULTIPLE 4-XBH GAMES IN A SEASON:

2-Henry Larkin, PHI AA, June 16, July 29, 1885
2-George Burns, CLE AL, June 19(1), July 23, 1924
2-Jimmie Foxx, PHI AL, Apr 24, July 2(2), 1933
2-Joe Medwick, STL NL, May 12, Aug 4, 1937
2-Billy Williams, CHI NL, Apr 9, Sep 5, 1969
2-Paul O'Neill, CIN NL, May 11, Sep 13, 1991
2-Rafael Palmeiro, TEX AL, July 15, Sep 6, 1993
2-Albert Belle, BAL AL, Aug 29, Sep 23(2), 1999
2-Shannon Stewart, TOR AL, Jun 9, Jul 18, 2000
2-Jim Edmonds, STL NL, Apr 4, Jun 28, 2003
2-Alfonso Soriano, WAS NL, Apr 21, Jul 22, 2006
2-Adrian Beltre, SEA AL, May 28, Jul 6, 2007
2-Aaron Rowand, PHI NL, Jul 14, Jul 17, 2007

As you can see, Rowand is the only player in MLB history have two separate games with 4XBH in a single month.

Rowand's also got 11 doubles already this month.  I can't say for certain, but I believe the Phillies record is 18 doubles in a month--by Hall of Famer Chuck Klein in July 1930.

 All of this in only 10 starts....

Kip Wells pitched a brilliant 2-hit gem yesterday, allowing only 5 baserunners and no runs in 8 innings.

That makes a lot of sense, especially given how in his previous start 5 days earlier he recorded only 3 outs, allowing 10 baserunners (8 hits, 1 walk, and 1 reached on error) and 6 runs (4 earned.)

Wells has had an amazingly inconsistent career, which is probably why he's stuck around a long time but never been a star.

Let's take a look at his game logs:

Read the rest of this entry »

As long as I have insomnia . . . .

Today is July 19.  Michael Barrett hasn't drawn a walk since June 9.  Weird. Sure, he's only played 23 games in that stretch but still.  Yeesh.

It's not yet the longest streak of his career though.  Back in '01 he went 25 games without a free pass.  While not a prolific walker, he normally averages one every three games.  He needs to get his head screwed on right and hack away less.

Bonds is slumping, hitting only one homer and batting below the Mendoza line for the entire month.  Which begs the question: what's the longest stretch he's ever had without a homer?

Have no fear, PI's Streak Finder to the answer.  Twice he went 27 consecutive games without slugging one out.  Though he's gone 13 straight without homering since 2001, since going batshit brilliant in 20001, he's only had  three of them.  The highest was 14, earlier this year.  Improbably, he 16 longest stretches all happened before he turned 36.  Gee, ya don't suppose something fishy's going on, do you?