You knew before you even clicked that this post would be packed with Mets antics. In an unusual twist, most of their antics this week were actually good. For them. If you were the Phillies or that other New York team, maybe not so much.
Meet The Mets
The week began with a makeup of the Mets/Yankees Sunday night game that got rained out on July 22, a schedule move which reduced the Mets to just two off-days the entire month of August and the Yankees to only one (which happens to be tomorrow). At least one of the teams took that anger out on some baseballs, with the Mets crushing five homers and Jacob deGrom blowing away 12 Yankees via strikeout in an 8-5 victory for a split of the six-game season series.
In Mets history, only Dillon Gee (really-- May 30, 2013) had struck out a dozen Yankees, and the offense had never gone deep five times against their Bronx, uh, friends. Amed Rosario started that pattern early, hitting the Mets' second leadoff homer this season against the Yankees. Brandon Nimmo did it at Citi Field on June 8, the first time they've ever done it home and road in the same season. (Nimmo's just getting started for the week as well.) After Luis Severino gave up another dinger in the 4th, well, eventually the ball gets turned over to A.J. Cole. And three of those balls got turned into the other three Mets homers, including back-to-backers by Nimmo and Michael Conforto to knock Cole off the mound. No Yankees reliever had given up three dingers since Ross Ohlendorf did it at Camden Yards on May 27, 2008; and only two others in team history had done it while getting four outs or fewer. That list is rounded out by Darren Holmes on May 20, 1998 (also against the Orioles), and Tom Ferrick at Tiger Stadium on May 7, 1951.
Tuesday's opener in Baltimore was an uneventful 6-3 loss, although in the strange world of interleague play, Nimmo did become just the second Mets batter ever to record a triple at Camden Yards. Timo Perez did it in a 10-3 win on June 12, 2001.
But you know what's coming next. On Wednesday the Mets destroyed Dylan Bundy for 11 hits, including a nine-run 6th inning, en route to the wacky final score of 16-5. It actually isn't too wacky (wait for it!); the Mets won another 16-5 game just last season, May 3 at Atlanta in their first series at SunTrust Park. And while several teams have won multiple 16-5 exact scores in the same year, the Mets are the first team to do it in consecutive years since the Yankees of 1931-32. As for that nine-run 6th, the Mets also had a nine-run frame against Washington on April 18 in an 11-5 win, just the second time they've ever had two in a season (also in the pennant-winning year of 2000).
We told you Brandon Nimmo was just getting started; he had three of those 11 hits off Bundy, tripled in two runs (closing Bundy's pitching line) as the first batter to face Tanner Scott, and beat out an infield single in the 9th when the game was way out of hand anyway. But count 'em, that's five hits to go with three runs scored and three driven in. Only one other Mets hitter has done that out of the leadoff spot, Phil Linz against the Phillies on July 6, 1968. But two doubles plus that triple also gave Nimmo three extra-base hits out of his five. The last Mets hitter with that line (3 XBH, 3 runs, 3 RBI)? Why, that's Brandon Nimmo, a week ago against the Reds. He joins Ike Davis (2012), Todd Hundley (1997), and Darryl Strawberry (both 1985 and 1987) as the only Mets with two such games in a season, and none of theirs came a week apart.
There was a time when talk of Mets leadoff batters hitting triples would immediately bring to mind Jose Reyes. Well guess who's back. Back again. In his second stint in Flushing, the 35-year-old Reyes isn't as fleet as he used to be, and has been slotted in the bottom third of the order a lot. (When he's not pitching, that is.) But he still managed a triple, a double, and two runs scored in this festival on Wednesday, just the third number-9 hitter in team history to do so. Amed Rosario pulled it off on May 30 in Atlanta. Before this year the only one had been Kurt Abbott, against the Orioles again (June 7, 2000). And together Nimmo and Reyes are just the second pair of Mets ever to triple, double, and score at least two runs in the same game. Two Jeffs (that's Kent and McKnight) did it against the Reds on August 28, 1992.
Shortly after Nimmo's triple, Kevin Plawecki blew the game open with a grand slam to cap the 6th, the first slam the Mets had ever hit in Baltimore. Todd Frazier has by now also collected three hits, four RBIs, two runs scored, and even a stolen base. It's been three years (August 21, 2015) since Yoenis Cespedes was the last Mets batter to do all that, but Frazier's just the second to do it against the Orioles. Bernard Gilkey piled up that line on August 30, 1997, in one of the two other games where the Mets had 19 hits against an AL opponent. The more recent of those was June 29, 2011, against the Tigers.
16th Floor, Going Up
Doubleheaders are rough on the players, but don't forget about all the workers at the stadium-- concessions, security, reporters, maintenance-- who have to spend an extended day at the ballpark without a cushy clubhouse to chill out in. (Heck, even the umpires have a five-man crew such that the two plate umps get the other game off.) So after 16 runs and 3½ hours of baseball on Wednesday, we certainly hope they got time-and-a-half for Thursday. Because they (and we) got score-and-a-half. Even after Amed Rosario started things with another leadoff homer, things still looked pretty normal through four innings, a 5-4 Mets lead despite Corey Oswalt giving up four solo homers. Annnnnd here comes that giant pothole, water main break, dangling construction crane accident, whatever "urban sprawl" metaphor you want, to take things to yet another level.
Single. Double. Ranger Suarez balks in a run (it's always the balk, dangit). Jose Bautista singles. Ranger Suarez departs. Flyout. Walk. Jorge Alfaro tries to get Bautista at third and throws the ball away. Fielder's choice (which should have ended the inning, making the rest of this mess unearned). Stolen base. E7. Single. Double. Walk. Nothing to see here, just a grand slam by Bautista who has come all the way around to bat again. Finally Oswalt makes the final out with a weak ground ball as the 15th batter of a 10-run, 29-minute top of the 5th. Since we already established yesterday that the Mets only had one previous season with a pair of nine-run innings, it's easy to figure out they've never had one in back-to-back games. In fact the last team who did was the 2006 Tigers, who did it in Kansas City on September 23 and 24 that year.
Not surprisingly, and especially with a second game still to play, we've reached "position player pitching" mode again. Against outfielder Roman Quinn, Michael Conforto homered to lead off the 7th and get the Mets their 16th run, their first time ever reaching that level in back-to-back games. Their fellow New Yorkers were the last of any team to do it, July 21 and 22 of 2007 against the Rays. And Quinn is clearly taking one for the team, at least until giving up back-to-back bases-loaded walks and a double to make it 21-4 in the 8th. Now we swap him for shortstop Scott Kingery, marking just the second time in the last 70 years that two Phillies position players have pitched in the same game. Outfielder Casper Wells gave up five runs in an 18-inning marathon against the Diamondbacks on August 24, 2013, and infielder John McDonald had to get the final out to seal the loss. You of course know that the final carnage is 24-4, the fifth time (in over 215,000 games) that exact score has ever appeared. The Red Sox were on the winning end of the previous one, which was a bizarre peach-ish color (they're by decade) on our famous matrix-- because it was on September 27, 1940. That win was over the Senators; the other games were Yankees over Red Sox on September 28, 1923; the Boston Braves over Louisville (Colonels!) on September 20, 1898; and Brooklyn over the original NL Washington Senators on May 24, 1892.
Speaking of Washington, Friend Of Kernels @MichaelT162 pointed out that barely two weeks ago, the Mets were on the incorrect end of a score very close to this one-- a game the Nationals won 25-4. Mike wondered how often a team has won a game by 20 runs and lost one by 20 runs in the same season. And well, it has happened. But we went the entire 20th century without doing it. Thursday's opponent, the Phillies, are two of the three teams to do it-- in 1887 (still known as the Quakers then) and again in 1894. The other is the NL's Buffalo Bisons-- to whom today's triple-A team is an homage-- who beat those same Quakers 25-5 and then lost to Chicago in what remains the only 31-7 score in MLB history.
In Thursday's masterpiece, Amed Rosario didn't stop with that 1st-inning homer. He went on to become just the second leadoff batter in Mets history to collect four hits, three runs scored, three RBIs, and a home run. The other was Len Dykstra, who did it 31 years earlier to the day (August 16, 1987) at Wrigley Field. While Kevin Plawecki didn't have the homer, he and Rosario became the second pair of Mets teammates with the rest of that line-- and the other was in that same game. Dykstra and Darryl Strawberry led the way in a 23-10 win that day, another score which remains in our matrix (it's orange because 1980s) as not having been duplicated since. Combined with Nimmo's game on Wednesday, it's the first time the Mets have gotten a 4-hit, 3-run, 3-RBI performance in consecutive games since Todd Hundley and John Olerud did it at Coors on May 5 and 6, 1997.
We mentioned Jose Bautista hitting a grand slam, but we didn't mention, A, that he was one of the bases-loaded walks and drove in the 24th and final run in the 9th for a total of seven; and B, that he didn't start the game. Nimmo left in the 3rd inning after being hit in the hand with a pitch and Bautista replaced him. But that also cements his place in history; since RBI became official in 1920, only two other players have had seven of them in a game they didn't start. Then-Blue Jay John Mayberry did it against Baltimore on June 26, 1978; and Roy Sievers of the White Sox was the first, on June 21, 1961, versus Cleveland.
Oh by the way, there's still a second game to be played. (You might have forgotten that the infamous 30-3 game in Baltimore back in 2007 was also a Game 1; that's the last time a team hit 20 and then still had another game to play.) The Mets dropped that one 9-6 thanks to some early home-run outbursts from Scott Kingery and Rhys Hoskins, the latter becoming the first Phillies hitter to go yard in both games of a DH since... oh. Rhys Hoskins did it against the Padres on July 22. But the last Phillie to do that twice in the same season was none other than Mike Schmidt in 1983 (both times against Montreal).
Rosario would go on to score three runs in the second game as well, the first Met ever to do so in both games of a twinbill. And Conforto piled up three more hits, a first in a Mets doubleheader since Shawn Green against Atlanta on September 6, 2006 (one was a three-homer affair). But in case we didn't have enough yet, possibly the best note we stumbled upon was that in the 24-4 opener, six different Mets had at least three hits, with Frazier, pitcher Oswalt, and the departed Nimmo being the exceptions. Only once before in Mets history has that happened, and it's one of our favorite links-- "The Rick Camp Game" in Atlanta, July 4, 1985.
Meanwhile In The Bronx
After that makeup game on Monday, the Yankees turned their attention to the Tampa Bay Rays, winning Tuesday's opener 4-1 behind seven scoreless innings from newly-acquired J.A. Happ. The one hit Happ allowed was a blooper by C.J. Cron in the 4th, and would have made his pitching line quite impressive but for the four walks and hit batter. That said, he did become the first Yankee pitcher in (at least) the live-ball era to throw seven scoreless innings, allow only one hit, but also walk four and hit someone. If you want walks, there's nothing like a good A.J. Burnett start; he came close in 2011 but his one hit was a home run so it didn't satisfy the "scoreless" criterion. In the ongoing "opener" experiment that is the Rays pitching staff, Jalen Beeks became just the second "reliever" in team history to allow two hits and strike out eight; Jorge Sosa pitched 5⅓ innings of an extra-inning loss at Cleveland on August 17, 2003.
On Wednesday, Luis Cessa, temporarily recalled from Scranton to take CC Sabathia's start while the latter is on the 10-day DL, allowed nine baserunners and five runs in a 6-1 defeat. He was the first Yankee starter not named Sonny Gray to do that in under four innings this season, while on the other side, Ryan Yarbrough threw four scoreless frames while allowing just three runners (two hits and an HBP). He's only the second Rays pitcher (starter or reliever, since that line is somewhat-permanently blurred now) to do that at Yankee Stadium; Chris Archer threw a complete-game two-hit shutout on July 27, 2013. And Mallex Smith joined Logan Forsythe (April 24, 2016) and Ben Zobrist (July 7, 2011) as the only Rays leadoff batters to have three hits including a homer at the current Stadium.
In Thursday's matinee finale, the Yanks again managed just one run, this time on an 8th-inning Giancarlo Stanton double that was reviewed and ruled to have actually hit the yellow line below the foul pole instead of the pole itself. In a nod to the explosive nature of the Yankees offense, it was the first time they'd been held to one run in back-to-back home games since June 11 and 12, 2016, against Detroit. That isn't all that long ago, but the only team to go longer without such a dry spell at home-- and this isn't a shock considering the altitude-- is the Rockies.
The Yankees did have a shot in the 9th, loading the bases against Sergio Romo on two singles and a four-pitch walk (appropriately, to Neil Walker) with nobody out. Rookie Adam Kolarek got Greg Bird to foul out on his first pitch, then struck out Brett Gardner and Austin Romine to save the victory. It was actually the second time this season that the Yankees, while trailing, had loaded the bases with 0 out in the 9th and failed to score. The other time was April 8 against Baltimore when Aaron Judge grounded into the old 1-2-3 double play and then Stanton struck out to end it. In the population of available play-by-play on Baseball Reference (which is complete for the Yankees to the early 1950s and has the majority of games back to the mid-1920s), they've never had that happen twice in the same season.
New York State Of Time
Sixty years ago there were a lot of New Yorkers who were bitter about losing two of their three baseball teams over the winter. (Actually you can find some who still are.) Those two former New York teams squared off again this week, this time in Los Angeles, and then kept giving us some fun notes even after they parted ways.
Monday's much-hyped matchup between Madison Bumgarner and Clayton Kershaw ended like so many much-hyped pitching matchups do-- in a war of attrition where they are equally good and the game hinges on who can get into the bullpen first. That seemed like it would be the Dodgers initially; MadBum left after six innings, but the Giants' staff spun three innings of one-hit ball to keep the game at 2-1 and give their offense a chance. Which it finally got in the 9th after Kershaw had thrown 110 pitches and gave way to Scott Alexander. Who promptly gave up as many hits in getting two outs as Kershaw did while getting 24. The third of those, a two-out, bases-loaded single by Nick Hundley, gave the Giants the lead for good, taking some of the sting off the two stolen bases, error, and two more runs that came after. But Kershaw ended up not getting the win despite throwing eight innings, allowing just four baserunners (he didn't walk anyone), and striking out nine. The last Dodger to pull that off? Of course it's Clayton Kershaw, May 23 of last season against the Cardinals. And until Monday, no Dodgers pitcher in the live-ball era had done it twice.
As for Hundley, that two-run single, turning the 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead, came as a pinch hitter, something he also did on April 30 against the Padres. He's the first player in San Francisco history to have two such pinch hits (turned deficit into lead in 9th or later), of any denomination, in the same season. The last Giants batter to pull that off was Hank Sauer, in what would become that fateful last season in Manhattan in 1957.
Tuesday's game will mostly be remembered for a bench-emptying scuffle between Hundley and Yasiel Puig, but the Giants came away with another victory, this one 2-1 with Alen Hanson driving in both runs-- separately, and without homering. Austin Slater on June 29 (at Arizona) had the same line, driving in both Giants runs in either a 2-0 or 2-1 win without homering. So did Andrew McCutchen against the Phillies on June 2. Three Giants players hadn't done that in the same season since Roger Metzger, Vic Harris, and Willie McCovey did it in 1978. On the Dodgers side of the boxscore, it was impossible to ignore Justin Turner's three doubles, partly because Los Angeles only had five total hits. Turns out Turner also had a three-double game against the Rockies on April 19, 2015, and is the first player-- for any team-- to have multiple three-double games at Dodger Stadium in its 57-season history. And to find the last Dodger with three doubles in a home-field loss, well, you have to go back to New York again. Lonny Frey did it against the Pirates at Ebbets Field on July 25, 1936.
And the old rivals couldn't get enough of each other on Wednesday, deciding to hang out for over 4 hours and play three extra innings before newly-acquired Former New Britain Rock Cat Brian Dozier ends things with a walkoff sac fly in the 12th. Sacrifice flies were only officially split off from sacrifice bunts in 1954, which only covers a few years of their New York rivalry, but since then only two other Dodgers have ended a game against the Giants by hitting one. Paul Popovich did so on August 25, 1968, and Ron Fairly hit the first one on October 2, 1962-- a "fairly" important one at that. That '62 affair was the middle game of the three-game tiebreaker series to decide that year's National League pennant; Fairly's effort forced Game 3 (although the Dodgers still lost), and that series remains the last best-of-three tiebreaker that MLB has played to settle a postseason berth.
Intermission
We were thinking of the Billy Joel classic when we titled this post, but searching for that link reminded us that there was also a composition of the same title by rapper Nas about 20 years ago. So click whichever you'd like. We suggest the first one if you're at work. Or around children. Or hanging out with your grandparents. You get the idea.
Walk Against The Light
Perhaps the Dodgers and Giants should have kept on playing each other. Because at least that way they can't both get walked off. Which is precisely what happened over the weekend, in the Giants' case on Friday in Cincinnati, and for the Dodgers, on Saturday in Seattle in one of our favorite bizarre ways.
Sometimes 2-1 games are actual pitcher's duels, and usually they're, well, not. The Giants and Reds went through the motions of smacking 18 base hits, 15 of them singles, but then getting caught stealing or grounding into double plays, such that there was only one half-inning longer than four batters after the 3rd. Knotted at 1-1 after the Giants couldn't get Gorkys Hernandez home from third in the 10th, Philip Ervin finally began the bottom of the 11th with the Reds' fourth walkoff homer of the year, tied with the Cardinals for most in the majors, and Cincinnati's most since Aaron Boone, Ken Griffey, and Sean Casey combined for four in 2002. It was the Reds' first walkoff anything against the Giants since Shin-Soo Choo singled home Todd Frazier in the 11th inning on July 3, 2013, and their first homer since Drew Stubbs hit one on August 20, 2009. But recall that the Giants also got walked off by the Dodgers on that sacrifice fly on Wednesday. They hadn't lost back-to-back games via extra-inning walkoff since... oh. Oakland did it to them last month in the Bay Bridge Series. So in that case, it's the first time it's happened to the Giants twice in the same season since 1987. They would go on to lose Saturday's game by a 7-1 count, and including their final game at GABP from last season, it's the first time San Francisco's been held to 1 run in three straight games in the Queen City since 1962.
And the Dodgers entered Saturday's game with a 20-0 record, the best in the majors (Arizona is 17-0), in games where they homered at least three times. If you only saw the first seven innings, you're wondering what we're talking about, because they didn't homer at all, and were trailing 4-1 in Seattle when Justin Turner led off the 8th. Home run. Two batters later, Cody Bellinger home run. One out in the 9th, Max Muncy home run. Hey look at that, we're tied. Just nine days earlier in Colorado, the Dodgers also had a game where they hit three homers in the 8th or later; they hadn't done it twice in a season since 2006, and one of those is the famous back-to-back-to-back-to-back-in-the-9th game. But all that went by the wayside when Robinson Cano beat out an infield single in the 10th to move Cameron Maybin to second. On comes Dodgers pitcher Dylan Floro. He walks Nelson Cruz on five pitches. As he's getting ready to throw Kyle Seager, he flinches ever so slightly. And boom, we have the first balk-off in the majors in over two years (Padres over Giants, July 16, 2016). The only other one in Mariners history was April 19, 2004, when Oakland's Justin Duchscherer committed the infraction to score Quinton McCracken.
But if you thought there was nothing Vin Scully hadn't called, the last time the Dodgers committed a balk-off, incredibly, was April 22, 1939. Russell "Red" Evans (we presume that's a hair reference) balked in the 9th at Shibe Park in Philadelphia to score Merrill "Pinky" May, so nicknamed because of the color he turned when he got angry.
Enye State Of Mind
That little dustup between Nick Hundley and Yasiel Puig didn't even last 24 hours as the most interesting incident of the week. Instead that would come on Wednesday, when Marlins starter Jose Ureña plunked Atlanta leadoff batter (and child prodigy) Ronald Acuña on the back of the elbow with his very first pitch. This certainly would have been less of A Thing had Acuña not homered in five straight games to tie the Braves' all-time record; the last to do it before him was Brian McCann in July 2006. And sometimes teams hide behind pitchers who are known for throwing inside (Ureña has hit 10 batters this year), but Chad Fairchild's umpiring crew wasn't buying it. After a 15-minute delay that even saw Atlanta manager Brian Snitker get ejected for going after Marlins players, Ureña got tossed having thrown only one pitch, believed to be the first pitcher ever to pull that off. There is a memorable incident from 2009-- and the last time a pitcher got ejected after one batter-- where John Lackey actually missed when trying to hit Ian Kinsler with the first pitch, throwing it behind him, but then succeeded on the second. And Ureña left as the second pitcher in Marlins history to face exactly one batter; Sergio Mitre developed a blister after only seven pitches against the Astros on April 17, 2007.
But at the risk of burying the lead, five straight homers. And more notably as it pertains to this week, three straight leadoff homers. The Braves and Marlins made up a rainout on Monday by playing a doubleheader, and often when a player tears it up in the first game, he'll get the second game off, either pre-scheduled or as some kind of reward. But apparently 20-year-olds have plenty of energy (who knew?), so not only did Acuña come out swinging and begin the week with a home run in the day game, he did it again around 7:45, becoming the first player in Braves history to lead off both games of a doubleheader with round-trippers. The last for any team to do it was Brady Anderson of the Orioles on August 21, 1999. And no Braves leadoff batter had homered at all in both games of a twinbill (any inning, not necessarily a leadoff homer) since Felipe Alou did it in St Louis on July 23, 1967.
Acuña would finish the day with five hits, five runs scored, and five RBIs between the two games, in various combinations of 2's and 3's, generating at least two more notes. He's the first Atlanta Braves player ever to have multiple hits, runs, RBI, and at least one homer in both games since Joe Torre did that in their final season in Milwaukee (May 9, 1965, at Mets), and although Acuña only had two hits in the day game, he did walk twice. So in both games Monday he at least reached base three times, plus scored two and drove in two. And the last Braves hitter to do that in a twinbill was none other than Hank Aaron, also against the Mets, on July 26, 1964.
When Acuña started Tuesday's game with another dinger, he became the first player to hit three straight leadoff homers since Anderson also did that from April 18 to 21, 1996 (that's the rather anomalous season where he hit 50 total). Acuña would add a three-run homer in the 7th with an unimportant single in between, making him the first Braves hitter since the move to Atlanta (1966) to collect three hits, two homers, and four RBIs in a home game. And since there must always be a note about Acuña's age (unwritten rules!), he became the youngest player with three hits and at least two RBIs in consecutive games since Houston's Cesar Cedeño did it on May 31 and June 1, 1971.
Acuña finally came back to earth with a 1-for-4 (single) on Thursday against Colorado, but he did pop up again Saturday with another three-hit, two-run performance in an extra-inning loss. That's four games with that line in a nine-day span; the only other Braves leadoff hitter in the live-ball era to do it so quickly was Kenny Lofton from April 14 to 19, 1997.
Second City
Chicago has long been referred to as The Second City, reflecting both its population ranking versus New York (until Los Angeles surpassed it in the 1960s), and the rebuilding of much of the city following the great fire in 1871. But for much of this week, Chicago had a big "1" next to it-- often signifying the number of runs they scored, and sometimes telling you who finished first in the game.
The Brewers made the quick wagon ride down that dirt path marked 94 for a strange two-game "series" on Tuesday and Wednesday, and at least in the first game the Cubs would have been thrilled with "1". Lorenzo Cain collected a "1" on the second pitch in the Second City, becoming the first Brewer not named Rickie Weeks ever to hit a leadoff homer at Wrigley Field. Three batters later, Ryan Braun hit the first of his two homers, and Milwaukee never looked back en route to a 7-0 decision where the Cubs mustered only three hits. They hadn't been shut out at home on three hits by Milwaukee since September 21, 1963, and if you know your team history, you realize that wasn't the Brewers. It was the Braves, for whom Warren Spahn twirled a complete game that day. Jhoulys Chacin only went seven on Tuesday, but still became only the third pitcher in Brewers history to throw at least seven scoreless frames, allow no more than three hits, and strike out at least 10 in a road game. CC Sabathia did it in Pittsburgh on August 31, 2008; and Ben Sheets shut down the Reds on September 12, 2004.
On Wednesday it was Junior Guerra's turn to take the mound for the Brewers, and unfortunately by the 4th inning it was already Dan Jennings' turn to take the mound for the Brewers. Guerra got rocked for seven runs, including a two-run homer by Anthony Rizzo, the first Brewer to do that at Wrigley without finishing the 4th since Seth McClung on July 2, 2009. Rizzo would have the most notable line in the 8-4 victory; no Cubs batter had homered, driven in three runs, and stolen two bases all in one game since Glenallen Hill did it against the Pirates on June 29, 1994.
By the way, we haven't forgotten about the White Sox entirely. They were off in Detroit, playing some fairly uninteresting AL Central games, but in their 6-5 squeaker on Wednesday, Jose Abreu delivered three hits, including a home run, and drove in three runs. That's the third time he's had such a game at Comerica Park; since it opened in 2000, the only other visiting player to have that line three times is Nelson Cruz. The White Sox hitters who did it three times at Tiger Stadium were Sherm Lollar and Harold Baines, while Ray Durham had three of those games, but split between the two parks.
The Cubs then made their way to Pittsburgh for the weekend, and here's where our "1" theme really kicks in. In Thursday's opener, Ian Happ cracked the ice with a solo homer in the top of the 4th. Meanwhile, Jon Lester is doing Jon Lester things, and even though Ivan Nova scattered six more hits, it's still 1-0 when both of them depart in the 7th. In 5⅓ combined innings the two bullpens proceed to allow only one more hit, and it's an infield single by Josh Bell. So Happ's home run holds up for a 1-0 win, the first Cubs batter to do that in a road game since Nate Schierholtz did it against his former team, the Giants, on July 27, 2013.
Schierholtz's run of being "the last" to do the thing lasted over five years. Happ's lasted just under 26 hours, and included a 107-minute rain delay. Because on Friday it was Kyle Schwarber's turn to hit the solo homer in the 2nd inning to open the scoring. And then Cole Hamels and Trevor Williams played a little pitch-to-contact game, combining for only seven strikeouts but 18 ground balls and importantly, no more runs. The Pirates even committed three errors to try and help Chicago reach "2" status again, but nope. We're fine, don't need it. So when David Freese grounded into a double play to end that game, yes, it's still 1-0 on the Schwarber homer. On the up side, we don't have to look up the last time the Cubs did this. (It's yesterday.) However, we do have a new search, for times the Cubs did it twice. They hadn't won back-to-back games by a 1-0 score since beating the Mets on April 17 and 18, 1973. And in team history (including the National Association days to 1871), they'd never done it where the run in both games came on a solo homer.
From the Pirates' perspective, they hadn't lost back-to-back games 1-0 since 1985, when the Padres beat them on May 9 and the Dodgers beat them on May 10. The last time it happened against the same opponent, or in Pittsburgh, was a doubleheader against the Mets at Forbes Field on September 12, 1969. And in their team history, they'd also never had consecutive 1-0 losses where the run was on a homer.
Remember that double play to end the game? Seems the reason the Pirates never scored, and Hamels got 11 ground-ball outs, is that Freese's GIDP was the seventh one turned by the Cubs in the game. Obviously with three outs you can only get one per inning. And thus Friday's Cubs became just the third team in major-league history to record seven "twin killings" in a nine-inning game. The others are the Astros on May 4, 1969 (vs Giants), and the Yankees at Shibe Park in Philadelphia on August 14, 1942. Those DPs also gave Hamels the distinction of being the first Cubs pitcher to allow eight baserunners, strike out only three, but allow zero runs in Pittsburgh since Steve Trout threw a seven-hit shutout on June 28, 1985.
And the Cubs just could not get away from their theme of being number 1, with Ben Zobrist going deep in the top of the 3rd inning on Saturday, and Schwarber doing it again in the 2nd on Sunday. The problem in those two games is that the Pirates got tired of their zeroes, "exploded" for five whole runs, and won both contests, including a walkoff homer by Adam Frazier on Sunday. The streak marked the first time that the Cubs had scored one run (or fewer, which can really only be zero) in four straight games since May 2009. Combined with Friday's game and two earlier in the season, Schwarber is just the third Cubs batter since 1900 to have four games in the same season where his solo homer was the Cubs' only run of a game; the others are Sammy Sosa (three times) and Ernie Banks in 1957. But more notably, even though they weren't all by Schwarber this weekend, the 2018 Cubs are the first team in major-league history to put up exactly one run in four straight games, with that run coming on a solo homer each time.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Jurickson Profar, Tuesday: First Rangers batter with a triple, a double, and 2 RBI in a loss since Alfonso Soriano vs Oakland, July 21, 2005.
⚾ Billy Hamilton, Sunday: First Reds leadoff batter with two triples since Juan Samuel against Pittsburgh, July 2, 1993. First to also drive in three runs since Lonny Frey at Shibe Park on June 26, 1938.
⚾ Wilson Ramos, Wednesday: Second player in live-ball era with three extra-base hits in his first game with the Phillies. Outfielder Edwin Freed did it in his major-league debut, September 11, 1942.
⚾ Rougned Odor, Sunday: First Rangers batter with 4+ RBI accounting for all the team's runs in a win since Rafael Palmeiro at Toronto, July 9, 1993.
⚾ Tanner Roark: Thursday: Second game this season with two hits and two runs scored on offense (Jul 31 vs Mets). Only others in franchise history to do it twice in a season are all Expos-- Steve Rogers 1981, Bryn Smith 1984, Ken Hill 1992.
⚾ Adalberto Mondesi, Tuesday: First Royals batter with four hits and three stolen bases in a game since Jose Offerman at White Sox, September 17, 1998.
⚾ Alex Cobb, Saturday: First complete-game win thrown by an Orioles pitcher who was already sitting on 15+ losses for the year since Chuck Estrada (7-15) beat the Senators on September 13, 1962.
⚾ Juan Soto, Monday: Youngest player to hit a home run in St Louis (any team, any stadium) since Houston's Larry Dierker on August 3, 1965.
⚾ Ian Desmond, Friday: Second player in Rockies history to have 5 RBI in a road game without homering. Other is Jeff Cirillo in Montreal, August 12, 2000.
⚾ Starlin Castro, Sunday: First Marlin with 5 hits & 3 runs scored since Miguel Cabrera at Phillies, April 28, 2007. With J.T. Realmuto on July 8, also in D.C., first time two Marlins have had five-hit games in the same park (including their own) in the same season.
⚾ Jose Peraza, Wednesday: First Reds leadoff batter with three extra-base hits in a loss since Pete Rose at Dodger Stadium, August 9, 1970.
⚾ Justin Turner, Sunday: Second Dodger ever with 4 hits & 5 RBI in an American League park, joining A.J. Ellis in Toronto on July 22, 2013. First Dodger ever to homer off an AL position player (Austin Romine).
⚾ Jose Ramirez, Friday: Hit 1st-inning homer accounting for all of Cleveland's runs in a win. Also did that September 28, 2014, against Rays (W 1-0). First in team history (1901) to do it twice.
⚾ Nick Castellanos, Monday: Second Tigers batter with a 5-hit game at Comerica Park. Other was Craig Monroe against Minnesota, July 22, 2005.
⚾ Rangers, Thursday: Turned first fielder's choice triple play (where all three runners are retired but the batter is not) since Dodgers did it on June 13, 1912.
Minor-League Minute
Fitting with our theme, the Yankees' double-A affiliate is in nearby Trenton, N.J., although you could say a "New Jersey state of mind" is a different thing entirely. Anyway, they got saddled with a doubleheader on Saturday against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Toronto) thanks to a rainout in their final visit to Manchester on July 17. In the first game, not only did it go to extra innings and invoke the much-debated "free runner" rule, but they didn't even need to bunt him over like every team does every single time. The free runner went to third on a wild pitch, and following a walk, a game-tying single, and a hit batter, they "walked off" on a second free pass. In the second game, guess what happened again. No extras this time, but in the bottom of the 7th, walk, hit-by-pitch, sac bunt, intentional walk since first is open, four-pitch walk for the game-winner. In a million or more minor-league games all-time, we're sure this has happened somewhere along the line. But in the population of searchable major-league games, which is over 95% of games since 1955, and about 80% for another 30 years before that, no team has ever gotten a double helping of shrimp in both games of a doubleheader.
Did You Know?
Why it's called shrimp. We've posted this before, but we know you don't click every link in these things. Or at least you shouldn't. ☺
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