Spring Training Part 2

Those first two weeks were just the warmup. Now the numbers start getting more crooked. (As mentioned, we know they don't count. But what if they did?...)


March 7: The Raiders, er, Athletics, put up a 21-13 final against the Diamondbacks, a game that included an 11-run 6th inning. Since 1930, the A's have scored 21 runs in just three regular-season games, the most recent being a 23-2 clobbering of Texas in the next-to-last game of 2000. Oakland's most recent 11-run inning came on July 5, 1996, when they opened with 13 against the Angels and won 16-8.

March 12: Not to be outdone, the White Sox dropped two touchdowns in the 9th inning against the Dodgers, a frame that took over 40 minutes and in which every hitter batted twice. The White Sox haven't scored 14 in a regular-season game since 2014 (only the Braves have gone longer without doing so), and have never done it in one inning. The highest-scoring frame in their history was a 13-spot against the Senators on September 26, 1943.

March 13: The Brewers got in on the party by collecting two dozen runs and two dozen hits (11 for extra bases) while blowing out Seattle 24-3. The Brewers have never scored 24 in a regular-season game (their high is 22, in 1992). Neither did the Braves when they were in Milwaukee. Neither did the original American League Brewers (now the Orioles). The last time a Milwaukee team scored 24+ was in 1891, when the minor-league Brewers joined the American Association partway through the year and needed until September 10 to get Athletic Park ready for play. In that first home game they dropped a 30-3 decision on the Washington Statesmen.

March 10: Ian Happ collected four hits and four RBIs for the Cubs despite losing the game to the Mariners, 11-10 via walk-off. The Cubs haven't scored in double digits and lost a regular-season game since May 28, 2006 (13-12 vs Atlanta), and Happ was the first Cub with four hits and four RBIs in a loss since Micah Hoffpauir did it against the Mets on September 25, 2008.

March 15: The Indians one-upped our previous item by losing a 12-11 game to Texas via walk-off. Cleveland hasn't scored 11 runs and lost since June 15, 2009 (to Milwaukee), and their last walk-off loss in such a game was to the Royals on July 21, 2002, when Heath Murray plunked Raul Ibañez with the game-winner, 13-12.

March 11: The Twins kept up our run of strange scores with a 13-0 shutout of the Red Sox. Remarkably, they scored 13 runs without hitting a home run, something they haven't done since May 21, 2010. And the last time they pitched a 13-0 (or larger) shutout without a homer was also against the Red Sox... on May 25, 1990.

March 10: The Jays/Tigers game was called when T.J. House was struck in the head by a comebacker in the bottom of the 9th, necessitating a 26-minute delay. House was okay and was released from the hospital the next morning, but the game thus has the quirky line that the visiting team pitched only part of the 9th inning, yet didn't lose on a walk-off. The last major-league game called in the bottom of the 9th was on September 13, 2009, when, trailing the Nationals by 5, the Marlins got a leadoff single from Cameron Maybin but South Florida weather ultimately won the battle.

March 11: The Astros lost to the Marlins 4-2, but in so doing, had the nice symmetric linescore of 2-2-2-2 (runs, hits, errors, left on base). The last team to post those wild deuces in the regular season was the Yankees back on July 29, 2000, and the Astros have done it just once in their history, against the Phillies on August 19, 1979.

March 18: The Rays mustered just four hits but managed to beat Toronto 3-2. The hits: A Jake Bauers homer, Patrick Leonard's triple, Dayron Verona's double, and a single by Riley Unroe. Yep, they hit for the cycle. No team's done that (four total hits, one of each value) and won since the 2013 Giants, and the Rays have had only the team cycle just once in their history. On July 5, 2004, Tino Martinez hit the home run, but Tampa Bay still lost to Baltimore 4-2.

March 12: The White Sox did not hit for the team cycle. They did, however, manage to score eight runs on 12 hits-- all singles. (Five stolen bases helped their cause as well.) Only one team in the last two seasons has managed 8+ runs without an XBH (the Angels on July 8), and the White Sox last did it on May 18, 1997, a 10-4 win at Oakland.

March 13: The Twins collected 12 base hits in a 9-4 win over the Rays, but thanks to the joy of spring-training substitutions, every hit was by a different player. That phenomenon-- 12+ hits, all by different players-- has happened only twice in the regular season in the live-ball era. The Mets did it in a shutout of the Cubs on September 18, 1977, and the White Sox did it in a loss to Oakland in 1970.

March 12: Speaking of substitutions, the Cubs used five different pinch runners in losing to Oakland. Had it been, well, not March, that would have tied the modern record for such a thing. The last team to use five PRs was the Red Sox in the final game of the 2004 season; as each of their regular starters reached base, they were subbed out to get a few extra innings of rest before their championship run. The Cubs also hold a share of that tie, using five PRs against Houston on September 2, 1986.

March 16: Dusty Coleman of the Padres secured his place as a "utility infielder", first pinch-running for Wil Myers, and then playing first, third, and short for two innings each. No player in the regular season-- even including those "all nine positions" stunts-- has ever pinch-run and played three different infield positions in the same contest.

March 12: Three different players-- Kurt Suzuki, Trevor Story, and Matt Hague-- each recorded three doubles. While each of their teams had at least one player with a "triple double" last season, it's been over a decade since three different players did it on the same regular-season day. On July 1, 2006, Mike Lowell (BOS), Luis Gonzalez (ARI), and Mark Grudzielanek (KC) all led their teams to victories with a trio of two-baggers.

March 14: C.J. Cron topped our previous trio by turning one of his hits into a triple. The quirk in Cron's line was that, despite starting in scoring position all three times, his teammates never drove him around. No one in the majors pulled that off last season (a triple and two doubles, but zero runs scored), and only one player has ever done it in Angels regular-season history: Mickey Rivers against the Rangers on September 25, 1973.

March 15: Yoan Moncada, now with the White Sox, cranked two homers out of Camelback Ranch for a 7-3 win over the Royals. Moncada doesn't turn 22 until Memorial Day weekend, which gives him most of this season to join some good company in team history. If it happens by September 15, he will be the youngest White Sock with a multi-homer game since 21-year-old Harold Baines hit two at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium on September 7, 1980.

March 10: Rangers starter Cole Hamels couldn't get over the hump (that's a "Hole Camels" joke for you spoonerism fans), allowing five of the six Dodgers he faced to reach base, and giving up two home runs before being pulled. Only four regular-season starters in the past eight years have pulled off the "feat" of allowing two homers while getting no more than one out, and the last Ranger to do it was Brian Bohanon against the Tigers, way back on April 22, 1992.

March 17: Closers didn't always fare so well either (if you can have a "closer" in spring training). Continuing from Part 1 a series of interesting Braves pitching lines, Luke Jackson started the 9th with a 4-1 lead. Six batters later, the Astros had collected five hits and a base on balls and walked off with a 5-4 victory. Had it occurred in the regular season, Jackson's line (0 IP, 6 R, walkoff loss) would be a first in (at least) the live-ball era.

March 18: Brewers reliever Paolo Espino also gave up eight hits and four runs, though in his case, he had been staked to a 10-3 lead and Milwaukee still won. That meant that Espino got credit for a four-inning save, under the "no matter how ridiculous the score is" rule. Since saves became official in 1969, only two pitchers have ever gotten one in the regular season while giving up eight hits and four runs: Jerome Williams for the Angels in 2012, and Dave Goltz for the Twins in 1973 (both, like Espino, had been staked to huge leads before entering).

March 17: Darrell Ceciliani contributed a grand slam and a triple to Toronto's 7-5 win over the Phillies in Clearwater. Only one Blue Jay has ever had both those hits in a regular-season game: Glenallen Hill against the White Sox on August 14, 1990, only about five weeks after the spider incident.
[Official Kernels policy: All Glenallen Hill notes must contain a link to the spider incident. You can enjoy that before moving on to Part 3.]