Since 1919, how many pitchers have 5 or more games in their career where they lasted 1 inning or less in the game and allowed 5 earned runs or more?

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(Thanks a ton to reader Doug N. who wrote in with this idea and did all the research himself. Some of what I wrote below is verbatim from his email, so he deserves a co-writing credit in addition to a research credit.)

Jim Thome has been activated off the disabled list and sits 9 homers shy of 600 for his career. He will, in all likelihood, become the 8th member of the 600-HR club at some point this season or next. However, if he can do it by August 21st of this year, then there's a good chance we'll see the first AL game featuring two guys who have both achieved 600 career HR.

That date is the last game this year between the Twins and the Yankees, and the other 600-HR guy would be, of course, Alex Rodriguez.

Here are other notable first games (as best as Doug could find), involving various numbers of players having achieved various career HR milestones. Numbers in parentheses are career HR at conclusion of noted game.

(This is written by John Autin. Please post lots of comments so we can show him that he should be writing these in separate threads, not burying them in the comments on other posts.)

Speaking of shutouts ... it's time for something else we see almost every day:  the nightly recap!

-- James Shields put up the highest game score yet this year, a 93, with his 3-hit blanking of Florida.  Shields set a personal best with 13 strikeouts, and did not walk a batter.

-- Roy Oswalt became the 10th pitcher this year to take a loss while allowing 1 run in 7+ IP.  Matt Harrison was just a little better, going 8.1 scoreless innings as Texas beat the Phils, 2-0.
-- Rick Porcello had the best game of his career, stifling the Pirates on 1 hit through 8 IP, using just 84 pitches.  The losing pitcher was Paul "My teammates, why have you forsaken me?" Maholm, who allowed 2 runs in 5 IP.  Maholm is 1-7 with a 3.65 ERA; Pittsburgh has averaged 1.4 runs in his 10 starts, including 3 shutouts.

-- The record for GIDP in a season (since it became an official stat) is 36, held by Jim Rice.  Only 14 players have ever hit into 30+ in a year.  I mention this because Albert Pujols had his 14th GIDP today, although the Cards still took the rubber game of this rivalry series.  But the real story of this game is that the Royals, after rallying from a 7-1 hole, lost the game in the 10th with a general meltdown featuring a walk, a throwing error, a hit batsman, and two more walks, each forcing in a run; their comeback in the bottom half fell short.

-- Royals rookie Aaron Crow continued his near-perfect season with a scoreless inning; in 22.2 IP so far, Crow has allowed just a 2-run HR, and has stranded 11 of 12 inherited runners.  Much skepticism was expressed when Crow made the club out of spring training, in light of his career 5.26 ERA in the minors.  But the 2-time 1st-round draft pick is picking up more believers every time out.

-- Sergio Romo earned a win with 2 scoreless IP as SF beat the A's, 5-4 in 11 innings.  Nate Schierholtz had the biggest blow, a pinch-hit 2-run HR that tied the score in the 8th off Grant Balfour, who had not allowed a run in his previous 14 games.  It's the first time this year that Romo has gone more than an inning, as the Giants have used him pretty much as a "righty specialist."  While Romo has been very successful in the role -- fanning about half the righties he's faced and holding them to a BA in the .120s -- the strategy is still puzzling.  Over his career, Romo has actually been markedly more effective against lefty batters, holding them to a .188 BA and .276 SLG (1 HR in 202 PAs), compared to a .196 BA and .334 SLG by righties (10 HRs in 356 PAs).  Well, you can't argue with success ... I guess!

The Phillies threw another shutout on Saturday, giving them 7 on the season and putting them on pace for about 25 this year.

No team has had that many since 1969 when the Amazin' Mets had 28 shutouts.

Here are the most team shutouts since 1919:

Since 1919, how many players hit 11 or more homeruns in their first 50 big leauge games?

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Here are the guys to bat under .200 while having an OPS+ of at least 120:

This is through Friday and excludes pitchers.

We have 2 players in 2011 currently on the list, although both Napoli and Giambi are likely to fall off one way or another--either their batting averages will go over .200 or their OPS+ will fall below 120 (or, more than likely--both.)

You've noticed by now, of course, that most of the seasons above are tiny samples. Many consist of a handful of games where a player happened to get a few walks or HBP to boost his OBP (and therefore OPS+).  And I know a lot of you readers will enjoy seeing Rob Deer's name twice. But that's an interesting entry from Frank Fernandez, a player of whom I had never heard before writing this.

For his entire career, Fernandez finished with a 114 OPS+ and just a .199 batting average. That was due in large part to his very high walk rate. Per 162 games, he walked 93 times, a rate consistent with a top slugger. And, hey, he had 22 homers per 162 games, so he was a pretty good power hitter indeed.

According to his bullpen page, Fernandez leads all players in walks and hits who finished with more walks than hits.

True dat. And for being on this list, Mickey Lolich should be written Mickey LOLich.

Wait, I am repeating Raphy. He wrote about this last year.

The Nationals put up 17 runs on the Orioles last night.

That's the most runs they've scored since being in Washington, with the previous high of 15 done twice. The Expos, though, had a whole pile of games with more runs:

Last night they got 6 home runs (one each from Espinosa, Bernadina, Ramos, and Nix, and a pair from Werth), which is more than they've ever had in franchise history. The last time they had even 5 came back in Montreal in 2002. That night the homers came from Vlad Guerrero, Brad Wilkerson, Wil Cordero, Jose Vidro, and Matthew Cepicky, who played in 89 games for the Expos (then Nationals) and Marlins in 2002-2006.

They had 7 different players get at least 2 hits, which they've done a couple of times before in Washington, most recently in 2009 against the Dodgers. But the Expos once had 9 different guy have multi-hit games, back in this 1979 contest. They were so good that day that two guys--Dave Cash and Tony Solaita--had multi-hit games even though they came in as replacements during the game. (Side note--the 'Spos had a nice 3-4-5 trio in that game--Andre Dawson, Tony Perez, and Gary Carter. I'm sure it's not all that rare to see a historical box score with 3 Hall of Famers batting in a row, but it's cool to see one for the Expos.)

Tonight, the Cubs lost to the Red Sox in their first game at Fenway Park since the 1918 World Series.

The final score was 15-5, for total of 20 runs. In the six games of the 1918 World Series, the teams combined for a total of 19 runs--in all six games.

Tonight, the teams combined for 9 doubles. In the 1918 Series, they had 7 combined.

Tonight, the Red Sox hit 2 homers, but in the 1918 Series, neither team homered even once.

Tonight, there were no triples, but in 1918 they combined for 4 over the six games.

In the 1918 Series, Hippo Vaughn went 1-2 by giving up 3 earned runs in 27 innings. Tonight, four different pitchers gave up at least 3 earned runs in the single game. (They were Doug Davis, Scott Maine, Jeff Samardzija, and Jon Lester.)

Remember all of the hemming and hawing over Tampa Bay and Boston's starts to the season? The Rays opened the year 1-8, the Red Sox 2-10. Both teams were 0-6, and no American League team had ever started 0-6 and reached the playoffs. No way these teams can make up those deficits, right?

Except both teams would make the playoffs if the season ended today.

Obviously it's a long season, and both teams could still end up missing the playoffs. But it's still funny to point out after all of the over-reactions in April.

As the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs kick off a 3-game interleague series tonight at Fenway Park, I am reminded of just how close we came in 2003 to what would have been a dream World Series. Two historic clubs, a pair of infamous curses, nearly 200 years of combined futility... how could this not have been one of the greatest Fall Classics ever?

It could very easily have happened, if not for two blunders -- Steve Bartman interfering with Moises Alou's play on a foul ball in Game 6 of the NLCS, and Grady Little leaving Pedro Martinez on the mound for the 8th inning in Game 7 of the ALCS. The Red Sox had a 91% chance of advancing to the World Series in the middle of the 8th, leading 5-2 with 6 outs remaining. And at the time of the Bartman incident, the Cubs had a 92% chance of closing out the Marlins and going to their first Series since 1945. By all rights, the WS matchup for the ages should have happened.

And what if it had? Who would have won a hypothetical 2003 Cubs-Red Sox World Series? Vote below: