Spring Training Part 3

[Ed.: These posted in reverse order, so feel free to start at the beginning and jump at the end of each post. Sorry about that.]

Thought we forgot about all those no-hitters, didn't you?

March 11: Masahiro Tanaka of the Yankees showed us a sign of things to come when he tossed four perfect innings against the Tigers with seven strikeouts. Since it's against The Unwritten Rules to remove a pitcher with a no-hitter intact, a regular-season comparison doesn't really work here, but in 2016 the Yankees had just two pitchers start a game with four perfect innings... one of them, naturally, was Masahiro Tanaka (May 27). The Rays' Steve Pearce led off the 5th in that game with a single.

March 15: Michael Pineda started the Yankees' game against Philadelphia with five perfect innings, and Aroldis Chapman added the 6th, before Freddy Galvis recorded the Phillies' only hit to lead off the 7th. The Yankees hadn't started a game with six no-hit innings (much less perfect) since June 17, 2015, against the Marlins. That day's starter... Michael Pineda, who issued two walks before Christian Yelich broke it up in the 7th with a solo homer.

The Phillies still managed to score in this game; their last regular-season affair where they got one-hit but still scored was against the Padres on April 5, 1997, when Rico Brogna's double propelled walk recipient Danny Tartabull around the bases.

March 17: Third time's a charm. In another Masahiro Tanaka start, the Yankees finally tossed the combined no-no, with Chasen Shreve and Mike Montgomery picking up the honors at the end. According to no-hitter researcher (and Friend Of Kernels) Dirk Lammers, it was the first known time the Yankees had tossed a spring-training no-hitter since March 14, 1983, when Ron Guidry and Dale Murray combined to blank the Pirates.

Montgomery's outing was unique by itself; only one pitcher in the past 11 regular seasons has gotten a four-inning save without allowing a baserunner (Drew Smyly in April 2013), and no Yankee had done it since Greg Cadaret got credit for one against the Brewers during the final week of the 1990 campaign.

March 24: We here at Kernels recently entered an annual MLB predictions contest. One of the questions was whether there will be at least two no-hitters in 2017. The Angels decided to answer that for us, using eight pitchers in another combined one against the Mariners. The Angels tossed regular-season no-hitters in both 2012 (Jered Weaver) and 2011 (Ervin Santana, who remains the last pitcher to allow a run in one); over the past six seasons, the Angels and Mariners are the only American League teams to be involved in multiple no-hitters (either giving or receiving). It was also the first known occurrence of multiple spring no-hitters in a season since 1966. As for two combined no-hitters, that's only been done once in any regular season in MLB history. The Orioles (July 13) and Braves (September 11) tossed them in 1991, part of that year's seven no-hitters, which tied the modern record from the year before.

However, our favorite part of the Angels' no-hitter is that only two batters reached base-- Zach Shank via a walk... and Jean Segura on catcher's interference. If you're new to Kernels, we find catcher's interference one of the most fascinating (and under-researched) aspects of the game; go ahead and ask us why Jacoby Ellsbury and Paul Goldschmidt are among our favorite players. To that end, the last time a batter was awarded a CI in a regular-season game where his team got no-hit, was on July 29, 1968. Chris Short of the Phillies led off the 3rd inning with one, but Reds pitcher George Culver forced him at second and then went on to complete the no-hitter, albeit with four walks and a run allowed.

March 16: The Nationals and Phillies both came close to adding another no-hitter, with Asdrubal Cabrera's double being the only hit for the Mets against Washington; and the Orioles waiting until the 9th inning to get a base knock (two, actually). Both teams still managed to score runs off those limited hits; for the Mets, their last regular-season game where they scored on just one hit was April 16, 1997, when they pieced four walks and two sacrifice flies around a Carlos Baerga double.

As for the Orioles, the last regular-season game where they scored a run without getting a hit until the 9th inning was on September 3, 2002, against the Rangers. After Alex Rodriguez was plunked in the top of the 1st, Texas starter Aaron Myette threw two pitches behind Melvin Mora and was ejected. Todd Van Poppel worked two innings without a hit, and then Joaquin Benoit worked six more in relief on 72 pitches (remember he began life as a starter?) before Jerry Hairston broke things up with a leadoff triple in the 9th.


March 22: The Padres pitching staff managed to hit four different Royals batters in their 6-2 loss (and remarkably, no one got ejected). San Diego hasn't plunked four batters in a regular-season game since June 5, 2002, when Dennis Tankersley gave out three by himself-- two of them on back-to-back pitches-- against the Giants. The Royals haven't received four since August 3, 1995, from the White Sox.

March 27: Trea Turner, batting first, and Bryce Harper, batting third, each went deep twice as the Nationals blanked the Mets 6-0. Only twice since moving to Washington has the franchise had two players with multiple homers in a regular-season game; Harper was part of the last pair, with Danny Espinosa on May 8, 2015. But never in franchise history (including the Expos years) have two of the top three batters in their lineup had a multi-homer game.

March 27: Gorkys Hernandez of the Giants took a nice tour of Scottsdale Stadium, starting in left field, then moving to right, then moving to center. He also toured the bases, hitting three doubles and scoring two runs. Since the turn of the century, the only Giant to play all three outfield positions in a regular-season game was Randy Winn, who did it thrice during his time there. And in the live-ball era, only two players have done it and collected three extra-base hits in a game: Jeffrey Hammonds of the Orioles in 1997, and Pat Sheridan for the Royals in 1983 (both had a homer and two doubles).

March 28: Remember back on the 15th when the Indians scored 11 runs and lost? They did it again. This time it was a 13-12 walk-off at the hands of the Brewers after the leadoff man reached on an error in the bottom of the 9th. The only team in the last 40 years to score 11+ runs and get walked off twice was the 2000 Orioles, who also did it by 12-11 and 13-12 scores (to Cleveland and Oakland respectively).

March 24: The Brewers, for their part, lost a 12-11 walk-off to the Reds just four days earlier despite hitting three triples in the game. The Brewers turn out to also be the last regular-season team to win a walk-off in which they scored 11+ and lose a walk-off in which they scored 11+, having done so against the Marlins and Cubs in 2012. Milwaukee's last game where they hit three triples and lost was on June 29, 1995, a 17-13 slugfest at the hands of the White Sox.

March 23: A day before that, those same Brewers probably felt like walking off in about the 5th inning after Junior Guerra posted the worst pitching line of the entire spring. Guerra gave up 10 hits, two walks, four homers, and 12 runs while not getting out of the 4th inning; depending on which formula you use, his Game Score is either a +2 (Bill James original used by Baseball Reference) or a -21 (Tom Tango's "2.0" now used by FanGraphs and MLB, which docks a pitcher 6 points for each homer).

The Brewers actually have the third-longest "streak" in the majors of having a pitcher not give up four homers in a game; their last to do it was Marco Estrada in May 2014. (The Pirates and Twins are the two teams that go back further.) And Estrada did it in a game they won; the Brewers have never had a pitcher give up 12+ runs and 4+ homers in a regular-season game.

March 29: We had a lot of fun last fall with that tie game the Cubs played, but the Royals and Rangers managed to play to a scoreless tie in the final Arizona game for both teams. There hasn't been a 0-0 tie in the regular season since the Pirates and Cardinals played to one on September 13, 1989, and neither the Royals nor Rangers have been involved in one in franchise history.

March 25: Four days earlier, the Royals had played nine more scoreless innings against the Brewers, but those teams decided to go ahead and play a 10th inning just for fun. Sure enough, Raul Mondesi Jr. smoked a walk-off solo homer for the 1-0 decision. In their regular-season history, the Royals have won just one 1-0 game via walk-off homer; Jim Eisenreich hit it in the 9th inning against Texas on August 14, 1990. Raul Mondesi Sr. decided two 1-0 games with homers in his career, but neither was a walk-off.

March 23-24: Speaking of walk-offs, on the 23rd the Braves and Tigers played at Champion Stadium in Kissimmee with Adam Walker dropping a walk-off single for the 2-1 victory. The next day the two teams walked off again-- in the other direction. Now playing at the Tigers' home in nearby Lakeland, it was JaCoby Jones who line-drove the winning single into right field for a 3-2 walk-off.

Obviously, modern schedules being what they are, teams almost never play each other at opposite sites on consecutive days in the regular season. In fact, in the complete population of play-by-play on Baseball Reference, this "dueling walk-offs" scenario has never happened in either the regular season or the postseason. (It has happened in consecutive postseason games, but travel days.) And only three times since World War II have teams walked off against each other two days apart, and the Dodgers are involved in all three pairings: As part of a four-game interleague series with the Rangers in June 2015; against the Angels in Freeway Series in 1998; and against the Giants on Labor Day weekend 1965.

March 29: The Rays left us one more huge inning, dropping a 12-spot (but only eight earned!) in a 15-batter 6th against the Orioles. If it counted, that would have set a franchise record for runs in an inning; they've posted two 11's in their history, one of them against the Orioles (August 28, 2007). They first set the mark on May 2, 2000, when they put an 11-run 8th on the Mariners and won 14-4. The Orioles have surrendered one 12-run inning since then, to the Yankees on July 30, 2011.

March 30: That leads us nicely into the Yankees' game against the Phillies, where they opened with a nine-run 1st inning that included seven hits, a throwing error on a walk (!), a passed ball, and an interference call. That 2011 game against Baltimore was the last time the Yankees posted a nine-run 1st in the regular season, and their last road game with one (i.e., the top of the 1st) was on June 5, 1988... at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

March 26: The Cubs split their huge inning into two, opening with a six-run 1st and then putting a "snowman" on the Reds in the 6th on the way to a 22-4 rout. The Cubs led the National League in five-run innings last year (16; this is another thing we like to track here at Kernels), but only got to six or more on five occasions. In fact, the Cubs have only had one regular-season game in the past 30 years with a pair of six-run innings: April 30, 2008, when they bookended a 19-5 win over Milwaukee with sixes in the 1st and 8th.

Bijan Rademacher, who pinch-ran for Kyle Schwarber following a 1st-inning walk, went on to score four runs and hit the first grand slam of his professional career. No player in the live-ball era has ever done that in a regular-season game he didn't start; the only one to even reach four runs and four RBIs was Kevin Elster of the Phillies on August 18, 1995; Elster hit for the pitcher in the 5th inning and then kept batting as the Phils racked up 15 runs over the final four frames.

And finally, amongst all our "fishing", March 22 gave us the best note of the month... when Mike Trout homered off Anthony Bass. We'll just leave that here.

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.]

Spring Training Part 1

Spring-training stats are meaningless. We know. Stipulated. Don't @ us. However, because they're meaningless, they're also not easily searchable, and so instead we thought we'd play a game of "what if". We set our boxscore-scouring machine to regular-season mode and set out to find some happenings and stat lines that would be unusual if it weren't March. We did not expect this list to be nearly as long as it ended up, so be sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3 of this tripleheader when you get a chance.


February 22: Dawel Lugo of the Diamondbacks hit a home run in the first game of the "season", after entering the game as a pinch runner. Only one D'back has ever pulled that off in the regular season: Jeff Salazar in 2008.

February 23: J.J. Niekro of Florida Southern College worked three innings against the Tigers in an exhibition game. The last "Niekro" to face the Tigers? That would be J.J.'s father, Joe, at the Metrodome on August 25, 1987. Joe's other son, Lance, is the FSC head coach.

February 24: Continuing our hypothetical "opening day" theme, Tim Beckham hit a leadoff double in the Rays' first plate appearance of the spring. Only two Rays have ever done that in the regular season: Julio Lugo (2006) and Randy Winn (1999). Beckham later added a triple, which no player has done in a regular-season opener since Jose Offerman of the Red Sox, also in 1999. Incidentally, the Rays will presumably throw the first pitch of the 2017 season on Sunday, just the second time a regular season has started in Florida. The Marlins hosted the first game of the strike-shortened 1995 campaign when it finally began on April 25.

February 24: The Giants won their first spring game on a three-run walk-off homer by Chris Marrero. It was the first walk-off homer for San Francisco against Cincinnati since Jeff Kent took Stan Belinda deep on July 26, 1998 (this one includes spring training since the Reds were in Sarasota for most of those years). In their history, the Giants have never won a regular-season opener via walk-off homer.

February 25: Edison Frias of the Astros allowed back-to-back-to-back home runs to the Tigers before plunking Miguel Cabrera with the next pitch and getting ejected. Only two pitchers in the live-ball era have allowed three homers and hit a batter without recording an out: Mike Trombley for the Orioles in 2000, and starter Warren Hacker of the Cubs in 1953. Neither of them was ejected.

February 25: The Mariners rolled to a 13-3 victory over the Padres in "interleague play", a game in which they also legged out seven doubles. Since 2004, the Mariners have scored 13+ in an interleague game just four times, and all of those have been against San Diego. They've never had an interleague game with 13 runs and 7+ doubles.

February 27: Speaking of the Mariners, they managed to have a home game at Peoria Stadium called early by rain. Thanks to their Seattle confines having always had a roof, there hasn't been a regular-season rainout of any Seattle home game since the Pilots and Twins were washed out at Sick's Stadium on September 27, 1969.

February 28: The Rays blanked the Twins 19-0 on 23 hits, five of which were homers (all of the multi-run variety as well). The Rays have only hit 19 and 23 once in their regular-season history, a slugfest with Toronto on June 24, 2004. The last 19-0 shutout in the majors was also that season; the Indians clobbered the Yankees 22-0 on August 31. In franchise history, the Rays have never had a regular-season game with five multi-run homers.

February 28: Michael Taylor of the Nationals hit a two-out walk-off home run to beat the Astros. In the history of the Nats/Expos franchise, they've only hit two walk-off homers against Houston; both were in extra innings, and neither was with two outs. Jose Macias took Billy Wagner deep in 2003, and Spike Owen went yard off Juan Agosto in 1989.

March 2: Adam Wainwright gave up two 1st-inning home runs, including a leadoff version to Dansby Swanson, but the Cardinals rallied to win 9-4. Waino gave up just two 1st-inning homers all of last season, and has only given up two in the same game twice in his career. As for Swanson, the Braves and Royals were the only two MLB teams to not hit a leadoff homer in 2016, and thanks to Alcides Escobar's shot in the 2015 World Series, the Braves have the longest current drought without one.

March 2: Phillip Evans of the Mets, pinch-hitting for Jose Reyes with the bases loaded in the 5th inning (yes, we know, spring training), cranked a grand slam out of what's now called First Data Field in Port St. Lucie. In the regular season, the Mets have never had a pinch-hit slam against the Marlins, and their only one in the 5th inning or earlier was hit by Robert "Hawk" Taylor off the Pirates' Bob Veale on August 17, 1966.

March 2: Jackie Bradley Jr. and Hanley Ramirez each collected a homer and five RBIs as the Red Sox trounced the Rays 19-2. The last regular-season game where two Bostonians did that was also the last time they scored exactly 19 runs: a 19-17 slugfest with the Rangers on August 12, 2008 (David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis).

March 3: The very next day, the Sawx dropped a six-run inning on Braves reliever Sam Freeman, who faced seven batters and retired none of them. The last pitcher with that line also did it against Boston: Matt Boyd, then of the Blue Jays, on July 2, 2015. No Braves pitcher had done it since their Boston days; James "Tiny" Chaplin allowed five hits, a walk, and a reached-on-error to the Pirates on July 29, 1936. ("Tiny" was actually 6-foot-1; while in the minors, he was traded for Johnny Vander Meer two years before the latter threw his consecutive no-hitters.)

March 4: Braves pitching put up another interesting line when starter Aaron Blair was hit with a comebacker by leadoff batter Cesar Hernandez and had to leave the game. Only one other Atlanta starter has ever faced one batter, left the game, and had that batter come around to score; on July 3, 1977, Andy Messersmith tripped while fielding a grounder from Julio Gonzalez; he landed on his elbow and needed season-ending surgery to remove two bone chips.

March 5: Yet another Braves pitcher, Patrick Weigel, hung a line of 0 IP and 6 ER in a rematch with the Red Sox. The Giants (September 17-19) were the only team last year to have a pitcher in three consecutive games give up run(s) while recording 0 IP, and the Braves have never done it in the regular season in the live-ball era.

March 5: Massive substitutions are great (unless you're trying to keep score). They lead to lines like Travis Taijeron of the Mets recording four hits despite not starting the game. No player in the majors has done that, even in extra innings, since Paul Janish of the Reds on July 4, 2010. Janish entered in the 1st inning after Joey Votto struck out and was ejected for slamming his helmet. The last Mets sub with four hits was our buddy Hawk Taylor on June 20, 1964 (also due to an ejection).

March 6: Brett Eibner of the Dodgers continued the theme by hitting a triple and two doubles in a game he didn't start. Only one player in the live-ball era has pulled that off in a regular-season game; Brian Hunter of the Braves was double-switched into Charlie Liebrandt's pitcher's spot on May 13, 1992, after the latter gave up eight runs in three innings.

[Continued in Part 2.]

World Baseball Kernels

We still don't know for sure whether there will be another World Baseball Classic down the road, and that's for someone well above my paygrade to decide. In the meantime, though, let's take a look back at the three weeks of oddities that marked the 2017 edition.

Walk-off Baseball Classic

This year's main tournament featured five walk-off victories, three of them oddly connected to each other. Jurickson Profar of the Netherlands drew the first-ever "shrimp" (game-ending bases-loaded walk) in WBC history on March 8 against Chinese Taipei; the only other walk-off "free pass" was issued in a qualifier in September 2012 when Germany's Jendrick Speer was hit by a pitch (we affectionately refer to this as a "plunk-off").

Two days later, Puerto Rico won its opener when T.J. Rivera hit a two-run homer, scoring Eddie Rosario, to invoke the mercy rule against Venezuela. It was just the second such homer in WBC history; Frederich Cepeda hit one for Cuba (scoring Yoenis Cespedes, and also via mercy rule) to defeat Mexico on March 12, 2009. In that same March 10 contest, Rosario became the fifth player in WBC history to go triple-double-single in one game; Cuba's Roel Santos did it earlier in the week. The others were Canada's Tyson Gillies (2012, still the only walk-off triple in WBC history) along with Brian Roberts and Gregor Blanco (both in 2009).

Rosario would have his own walk-off in Puerto Rico's semifinal victory over the Dutch on March 20. His sacrifice fly, set up by the international extra-inning rules, was also a "second" in WBC play; the Netherlands hit one on March 11, 2013. The outfielder to whom Rosario's ball on Monday was hit? Jurickson Profar.

Profar's "walk-off" in that first-round game was set up by Didi Gregorius's game-tying double in the bottom of the 9th. Gregorius was the fifth player in WBC history to have three doubles in a single game, and the first since Ruben Tejada did it for Panama in a qualifer in November 2012.

Speaking of walk-offs, you probably remember the controversy that developed when Mexico allowed five runs in the 9th to Italy and was shut out of the tiebreaker game as a result. Had Roberto Osuna recorded just one out, Mexico's run rate would have been better than Venezuela's and they would have advanced. The fact that he didn't lands him in this post. He's just the third pitcher in WBC history with a line of 0 IP and 5+ runs allowed. Dennys Reyes, also pitching for Mexico, allowed three hits, a walk, and a hit batter against Cuba in 2009; while Jan Novak of the Czech Republic pulled it off in a qualifier for the 2013 edition against Germany.


Going Dutch

The Netherlands would advance to the semifinals at Petco Park on March 15 with a 14-1 mercy-rule victory over Cuba. In that game, Wladimir Balentien homered twice and drove in five runs, the sixth player in WBC history to do that. The others include Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Olivo, and Ken Griffey Jr. In his 170-game major-league career, Balentien never had either a multi-homer game or a five-RBI game, although he did do both at triple-A Louisville in July 2010.

Compatriot Yurendell Decaster also chipped in a homer and four RBIs, the fourth set of teammates ever to do it in the same WBC game. The third set happened just six days earlier when Australians (and former New Britain Rock Cats, shameless plug) James Beresford and Luke Hughes did it in their 11-0 shutout of China.

Xander Bogaerts of the Red Sox picked up a triple on March 7, matching his MLB total from 2016 (and that was on the final weekend of the season). And yes, that would be Rick van den Hurk getting the win for the Netherlands; his last major-league victory was back on October 2, 2009. While he pitched only four innings (the "five-inning rule" gets thrown out in most exhibition games), van den Hurk got his WBC win without a single strikeout, a quirk he never accomplished in the majors. In the WBC's four-tournament history, only five starters have recorded a win with zero strikeouts, and three have been Dutchmen. Diegomar Markwell surrendered nine hits, but just one run, to Cuba in pool play in 2013; while Shairon Martis twirled a seven-inning mercy-rule no-hitter against Panama in the 2006 edition.

While Martis's effort remains the only WBC no-hitter ever (sorry, Marcus Stroman), China on March 8 became the sixth team in tournament history to get one-hit. Shunyi Yang's single with one out in the 5th against Cuba marked just the second of those six games where a team's only hit came in the 5th or later. Against the Dominican Republic in 2006, Venezuela was also held to just one base knock, a 6th-inning double by Omar Vizquel.

Mideast Piece

Israel, meanwhile, made a remarkable sweep of its pool, including a 15-7 drubbing of Chinese Taipei in which they pounded out 20 hits. That was the third-highest total in WBC history; Australia collected 22 in a 17-7 win over Mexico in 2009, while Canada ran up 21 in a 16-7 qualifying win over Germany in September 2012. Those games also account for three of the four highest combined scores in WBC history; the only other game with 22 or more runs was New Zealand's 17-7 win over the Philippines in last February's qualifiers.

Nate Freiman had three of those 20 hits, including a three-run homer, and also scored three times. It was just the second time in his professional career (majors or minors) that he's scored three runs and driven in four. The other was July 21, 2011, for the high-A Lake Elsinore (Calif.) Storm.

Freiman held another unique piece of WBC history until recently. In Israel's September 2012 qualifier for the 2013 tournament, he had a pair of two-run homers in a 4-2 victory over Spain. That feat-- 4+ RBI accounting for all of a team's runs-- was finally duplicated on March 10 when Alfredo Despaigne of Cuba hit a grand slam to singlehandedly beat Australia 4-3. Two days later, Despaigne would have a solo home run in Cuba's 4-1 loss to Israel, one of four players this month to drive in a team's only run with a solo homer. The others were Australian (and also former New Britain Rock Cat) Allan de San Miguel, Nelson Cruz of the Dominican, and Ryosuke Kikuchi in Japan's 2-1 semifinal loss to the U.S.

Island-Hopping

Mike Aviles and Enrique Hernandez hit back-to-back triples for Puerto Rico on March 12. Aviles has had only two major-league triples in the past five seasons (1,812 PA), and Hernandez didn't have any last year. The only other occurrences of back-to-back triples in the WBC were on March 15, 2009 (Jimmy Rollins and Brian Roberts for the U.S.), and March 8, 2006 (Canada's Aaron Guiel and Adam Stern). Only one team in the majors last season had its 8- and 9-hitters collect back-to-back triples; that was the White Sox (Dioner Navarro and Austin Jackson) on April 27.

Aviles added four hits and three RBIs in the second round on March 18, a line he's had only twice in his major-league career (last on June 15, 2010).

The star-studded Dominican team opened the tournament with a 9-2 win over Canada on March 9. They collected five extra-base hits, and you've probably heard of all five guys who had them: Jose Bautista, Welington Castillo, Carlos Santana, Nelson Cruz, and Jose Reyes. Including the postseason, those five sluggers have combined for 2,298 extra-base hits in their major-league careers. But how many times have they each had an XBH on the same day (much less for the same team)? That would be none.

Bottom of the Bag

Martin Prado (VEN), March 11: First player in WBC history to record a five-hit game.

Tetsuto Yamada (JPN), March 14: First leadoff batter in WBC history to homer twice in same game.

Dominican Republic, March 12: Seven runs were most in an extra inning in WBC history; last MLB team to score 7+ in 11th or later was the 2015 Rangers.

Mexico/Venezuela, March 12: Nine-inning game took 4 hours 44 minutes, longest in WBC history and just 1 minute shy of the MLB record (Yankees/Red Sox, August 18, 2006).

Adam Jones (USA), March 10: Walk-off single in bottom of 10th inning; hasn't walked off in an MLB game since August 2012. Bizarrely, five of his six career MLB walk-offs have been in extra innings.

Chih-Sheng Lin (TPE), March 9: 0-for-5 with five strikeouts, the first "platinum sombrero" in WBC history.

Nolan Arenado (USA), March 21: 0-for-4 with four strikeouts, the first 4-K game ever by a player for the U.S. team. Arenado has one 4-K game in his major-league career, in 2015.

Ian Kinsler (USA), March 22: First player ever to hit a home run for the winning team in a WBC final.