From the way-back machine, here is a post from 4 years ago about pitchers who played outfield in the same game. A few readers brought this up on another thread.

Since I wrote that post, Chris Resop in 2008 had a game where he moved to left field for one batter. Sean Marshall did it too in this 2009 game.

Since 1919, there have been 114 players with at least one game with 8 or more RBI. The 3 players to do it the most are Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Dave Kingman.

Among those 114 players, here are the fellas with the fewest career RBI:

As with my recent post about fewest career HR buy a guy with a 3+ homer game, I have included active players here who are likely to move off the list given some time.

J.R. Towles is in the majors now and will hopefully accumulate a bunch more RBI before his career is over. If so, that will put Bill Glynn at the top of both the above list, as well as the 3+ HR list. That's thanks to this game, where Glynn drove in 8 runs while batting leadoff (as the first baseman!) for the Indians.

OK, rapidly getting off track here, but 1B batting leadoff can't be all that common...I just checked and the last time a player started as the leadoff hitter and at first base was Dan Johnson for the Rays last year. Ben Zobrist also did it for the Rays a few days earlier, and before that it was Conor Jackson for a few games early in 2010 and Dan Murphy for a few games in early 2009.

And, just to go totally off topic, the other day I was wondering if a team ever had a batting order that went 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, i.e. the right fielder batting first, the center fielder batting second, etc. Seems like the rarest thing on there is the first baseman batting 7th, but that does happen a fair number if times each season.) Anybody know?

Earlier today Brian McCann entered a game as a pinch-hitter, hit a game-tying homer in the 9th inning, and a walk-off homer in the 11th inning.

There's no easy way to search for games exactly like this. There have been 65 times since 1919 that a player entered a game as a sub and hit at least 2 homers.

Here is the best of those games, ranked by WPA:

Shamsky's game was a loss so we know he didn't hit a walk-off homer.

Mike Young did as well as McCann--he homered in the bottom of the 10th and the 12th.

Hairston tied the game on a homer in the 8th and then won it in the 10th on another homer.

Rice hit a tying home in the 9th and go-ahead homer in the 11th, but playing for the visiting team.

Bagwell homered in the top of the 8th and 10th innings.

Howard homered in the top of the 8th and 12th innings.

None of the other games qualify either.

So, we've got Mike Young and Brian McCann...anybody else?

Yesterday Vin Mazarro gave up 14 earned runs, becoming the first pitcher in 13 years to do it, and just the 7th in the last 70 years:

Mazzaro is the first to do it in relief McCrabb in 1942.

The record in our box score era (since 1919) is 16 earned runs:

These guys were all starters.

Harmon Killebrew has died.

Some career highlights:

• Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984
• 1969 AL MVP
• Led the league in HR 6 times and is currently 11th all-time in homers, but he was 5th at the time of his retirement
• 8th in AB/HR
• He was a 13-time All-Star, including selection at 3 different positions
• 14thin Win Probability added since 1950
• He is the Twins' franchise leader in offensive WAR, SLG, OPS, games played, HR, RBI, OPS+, extra base hits, and numerous other categories
• I've never heard or read a single bad word about the guy.

Pictured here are Rod Carew and Killebrew. Between these two guys, they defined the Twins franchise throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Rest in peace, Mr. Killebrew.

John Lackey was scheduled to start tonight but was placed on the DL instead, with an elbow strain. From that ESPNBoston.com piece:

Francona was asked if this is a smokescreen for a mental-health break for Lackey, who is dealing with some family issues in addition to his troubles on the mound, leading him to say after his last start that everything in his life was not good these days.

"Really not, no," Francona said when asked if the move was made to give Lackey time to clear his head.

I don't believe Francona, but I think his answer was the right one to give. I suspect the hope is that some time away from the game will give Lackey the opportunity to focus some energy on his personal life, hopefully come to a better place there, and then be able to focus more on baseball when he comes back to pitch.

It's clearly the right thing to do. Life's more important than baseball, and Lackey's not giving the Red Sox much chance to win anyway.

Ever wonder what the last season looked like for each member of the 400-career HR club?

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Todd Helton has played his entire career for the Colorado Rockies, first filling in the outfield in 1997 and eventually taking over at 1B for Andres Galarraga. That makes him only the second full-time first-baseman in Rockies history, and he's held down that position for 14 years.

Helton was overshadowed for a number of years by Larry Walker, another Rockie with an interesting resume worthy of HOF debate. But Helton put up a ton of good numbers in his own right, and his career is definitely worth a long look too.

Some career highlights:

• Five-time All-Star (in 5 straight years from 2000 to 2004)
• 3 top-10 MVP finishes
• Won a batting title in 2000 with a .372 mark
• Won 3 gold gloves at first base

Jumping in, I want to try to list some pros and cons of Helton's Hall of Fame case, but I'd like to try to avoid numbers that inflated by Coors Field. Here's why:

There's no doubt that Helton's raw numbers have benefited tremendously from playing for the Rockies. Look at the last column above, tOPS, which is a breakout of his overall offensive performance split by home vs. away. That number of 120 has got to be one of the highest all-time for a long-time player like Helton. It's incredible. It's led to 58% more home runs, 52% more RBI, and a whopping 63% more runs scored.

I didn't include the data in the above chart, but here's another interesting thing about Helton's H/A splits. At home, he has 640 walks and 420 strikeouts, a fantastic margin. On the road? He has exactly 566 walks AND strikeouts each (through Saturday's games.) So his big advantage at home in walking over striking out disappears on the road.

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A quick note to let everybody know that we now list WHIP and ERA+ on the Cy Young Award voting tables:

2010 NL Cy Young Voting

1969 AL Cy Young Voting

Special thanks to B-R user Brendan for the suggestion!

B-R reader Nash noticed something interesting about Mordecai Brown's black ink this weekend:

"Everyone talks about unbreakable records (DiMaggio's 56, Cy Young's 511, etc.), and I know that this is in the context of the 'dead ball' era, so I don't know how relevant this is -- but in 1910, Mordecai Brown led the league in CG, SHO, and ... SAVES.

Don't think that anyone will pull THAT off again anytime soon!"

Keep in mind that the save policy we're using for pre-1950 seasons is the so-called "encyclopedia rule" (a pitcher who finished a game his team won, but did not get the win himself, is awarded a save). Still, Brown is just one of four pitchers since 1901 to lead his league in complete games, shutouts, and saves in the same season:

Like Nash says, this is one club that's unlikely to expand beyond its four current members anytime soon.