Scoreboard shots from Josh Hamilton's 4-HR game (before the last one) and the Royals' 7-run B9. One of those lost its "last time it happened" luster this week, and the other came close.
Ya Gotta Believe!
On Sunday the Angels led off the bottom of the 9th with an Albert Pujols solo homer to cut the lead to "only" five. It was Pujols' 592nd career dinger; the most recent player to hit number 592, Jim Thome, also did it against Seattle (May 23, 2011).
However, it was the four-run, two-out rally-- featuring four hits, four walks, and a wild pitch-- that brought the Angels all the way back for a 10-9 win on Cliff Pennington's walk-off single. Since the Mariners came into existence in 1977, the Angels have more walk-offs against them (32) than any other team.
The last seven-run bottom of the 9th in the majors was, as mentioned, last May by the Royals (earning Brett Eibner a permanent place in our hearts despite KC trading him two months later). The last time the Angels dropped a seven-spot in B9 was April 15, 1994, against the Blue Jays, a wild game in which they allowed five in T9 to go down 13-6, scored seven in B9--capped by a Harold Reynolds double-- to tie it, and then won on Damion Easley's single in the 10th. (There have been just four other games since then where both teams scored 5+ in the 9th.)
The Mariners last allowed a seven-run B9 on April 10, 1998, at Fenway Park, a game that ended on Mo Vaughn's walk-off grand slam, still the last one hit by the Red Sox when trailing.
Sure enough, after an off-day on Monday, the Angels pulled it off again Tuesday, this time "only" needing a three-run 9th to tie their game with the Rangers, and again starting the comeback with a solo home run (Danny Espinosa). All three of Espi's homers this year (he hit another one Thursday) have come in the 9th inning; no other player has hit two yet this year.
The Angels then won Tuesday's game on a squeeze bunt by Carlos Perez; Mike Napoli had no play at home and could only hope the ball rolled foul (it didn't). The last "bunt-off" in the majors, without an error involved, was laid down by another "Angel"-- Sanchez of the Cardinals on September 26, 2011. Anaheim hadn't won consecutive walk-offs against different opponents since September 8 (Indians) and 10 (Mariners) of 2010, and hadn't led off B9 with homers in back-to-back games since Jim Edmonds and Tim Salmon did it on August 25 and 26, 1995.
And as for that list of Angels' victories, the Mariners may have been victimized the most since they were founded, but since the Angels themselves were founded in 1961, the opponent they've walked off the most is the Rangers (now 42 times including the Senators years, six more than any other team).
Please Come To Boston
Although we lost the fun of saying we were at the last seven-run 9th-inning comeback, we gained one for the annals this week by watching knuckleballer Steven Wright attempt to retire Orioles hitters at Fenway Park on Wednesday. He did retire four of them. The problem is that he faced 13. Eight of the other nine scored, and Wright became the first pitcher in Red Sox history to give up four homers within the first two innings of a game. (The team as a whole has done it several other times, but not all by one pitcher.)
Ben Taylor (and/or John Farrell) got the biggest ovation of the night when he replaced Wright, although he would later give up Trey Mancini's second homer of the game. That gave the Orioles their first five-homer game at Fenway since the final day of the 1977 season (won 8-7); Eddie Murray played the Mancini role in that contest and was the player who hit two.
Someone Say Four Homers?
As for that Josh Hamilton four-homer game, Yoenis Cespedes made us a bit nervous on Tuesday when he went deep in the 1st, 4th, and 5th innings of a Mets free-for-all at Citizens Bank Park. That made him the first Met with a three-homer game since… Yoenis Cespedes on August 21, 2015; he's now the only player in Mets history to do it twice.
Cespedes had two more chances to knock Hamilton off our pedestal; he doubled in the 7th inning to accumulate 14 total bases on the day. That's third in Mets history, behind his other 3-HR game (in which he also doubled and singled), and Edgardo Alfonzo's six-hit game (16 TB) on August 30, 1999.
Asdrubal Cabrera chipped in four hits and three runs scored; he and Cespedes became the first Mets teammates to post that line in the same game since (really) Ronny Paulino and Angel Pagán did it against the Tigers on June 29, 2011.
Lucas Duda also had two homers on Tuesday, including one in the 9th for the final margin of 14-4. Duda was also part of the last pair of Mets with multiple homers, teaming with Ike Davis against the Nationals on April 19, 2013.
All told the Mets hit seven homers and 14 extra-base hits in Tuesday's game. Friend Of Kernels Jayson Stark points out that the Mets have had three games in their history with at least seven home runs. And all of them have been at Citizens Bank Park (not Citi Field, not Shea, not even that one year at the Polo Grounds).
While we're on the Mets, Travis d'Arnaud hit one of their biggest homers of the young season on Thursday, finally bringing the curtain down on the year's longest game so far. D'Arnaud's solo shot in the top of the 16th was, by inning, the second-latest ever in a road game in Mets history. Del Unser went deep in the 17th inning at Busch Stadium on April 19, 1976.
And speaking of duplicating things, Cespedes hit two more homers in that Thursday game with Miami; the last Mets batter with two such games in three days was Carlos Delgado on September 7 and 9, 2008.
Weekly Evan Gattis Note
We discussed the interesting game that Astros catcher Evan Gattis had last weekend, but darned if he didn't find his way back. This time it's for earning a game-ending bases-loaded walk to beat the Royals 5-4 on Sunday. Houston had not been served "shrimp", as that play is known in baseball Internet circles, since July 17, 1999, when Derek Bell scored Craig Biggio to beat the Tigers. They were the only team to not win a game in such fashion yet in the 2000's; the Red Sox (September 23, 2000) inherit the longest drought of such a thing. The Royals hadn't issued one since June 3, 2003 (to then-Dodger Adrian Beltre). And combined with the one the Rays got last Saturday, it was the first occurrence of "walk"-offs on back-to-back days in nearly 20 years. Nomar Garciaparra (Red Sox) and Andres Galarraga (Rockies) each got them in the 11th inning of their respective games on July 10 and 11, 1997.
It's A Good Thing
Every year (almost) since 1923, the Yankees have opened another season at the intersection of 161st and River Avenue. On Monday, however, Michael Pineda stole the show by retiring the first 20 Rays batters in order, half of them via strikeout, until Martha Stewart jinxed him by Tweeting about it. Evan Longoria belted a double for the first of only two Rays hits (a Logan Morrison homer would be the other) as the Bombers rolled to an 8-1 victory.
We scrounged up play-by-play for each of the Yankees' last 90 home openers, and Pineda was only the second pitcher to have either a perfect game through five or a no-hitter through six. Ron Guidry had the former, against the Brewers in 1979, before giving up four runs in the 6th. And against the Red Sox on April 12, 1959, Bob Turley erased his only baserunner (a walk) on a double play before allowing two runs in the 7th; he still won a complete-game two-hitter.
The Yankees later hit for the cycle in the span of four batters as they unloaded on the Rays' bullpen; the team's last time hitting for the cycle in one inning was August 3, 2011, against the White Sox. Eric Chavez had the home run and Mark Teixeira had his only triple of that season (in fact, the next-to-last of his career despite playing five more years).
Cycling The Rockies
Wil Myers didn't wait for his teammates to hit for the cycle on Monday; he took care of that himself by legging out an 8th-inning triple against the Rockies. That marked just the second cycle in Padres history, after Matt Kemp did it on August 14, 2015, also at Coors Field.
Last season the Padres had 17 players miss the cycle by the triple, second in the majors only to the Tigers' 18. Their team total of 18 "near-cycles" in 2016 (Manuel Margot missed the homer) tied for the most in San Diego history.
By date, Myers had the earliest cycle since Brad Wilkerson did it on April 6, 2005, in the second game ever played by the Washington Nationals. Last year's first cycle didn't come until June 15 (by Freddie Freeman).
The cycle, by the way, is one of those things that we here at Kernels, in 29 seasons, have still never stumbled onto in person.
Someone Say Freddie Freeman?
Freeman and Starling Marte each had four hits in Sunday's Braves/Pirates game, with Freeman's two homers ultimately losing to Marte's walk-off variety. Freddie became just the fifth Braves player in the live-ball era to have four hits and two homers in Pittsburgh, and the first to do it in a loss (anywhere) since Andrew Jones on September 23, 2006 (at Coors Field, of course). The rest of that other list ain't bad either: Gary Matthews (1980), Hank Aaron (1960), Jim Pendleton (1953), and Babe Ruth (1935).
Marte, meanwhile, was the second Pirate in the past 10 years to have four hits including a walk-off homer. The other… was Starling Marte, against Toronto on May 2, 2014. It was also the first walk-off homer Pittsburgh had hit against the Braves when trailing since Frankie Gustine took Vern Bickford deep on June 5, 1948.
Bottom Of The Bag
⋅ Matt Holliday, Sunday: First Yankee to draw five walks, with none of them intentional, since Russ Derry did it against the Tigers on September 6, 1945.
⋅ Rangers, Sunday: First game in franchise history scoring 8+ runs, with all of them driven in by the lower third of the batting order.
⋅ Nationals, Monday: Committed four errors and won for the first time since the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. Posted just the third "14-19-4" linescore in MLB history, the others being by the Royals in 1983 and the Pirates in 1960.
⋅ Marcell Ozuna, Tuesday: First player (home or visitor) with a 2-HR, 6-RBI game at Marlins Park. Gaby Sanchez had the last such game for the Marlins, on June 11, 2010. Also first to have a rally cat climb onto the home-run sculpture during a game where he homered.
⋅ Stephen Piscotty, Wednesday: First "St Louis" batter to have a 5-RBI game in Washington since Roy Sievers did it for the Browns against the Senators on September 20, 1949.
⋅ Justin Haley, Thursday: First Twins pitcher in 30 years (and one day) to record a three-inning save with at least six strikeouts. Juan Berenguer did it against the Mariners on April 12, 1987.
⋅ Yu Darvish, Thursday: 11th game of career with double-digit strikeouts and zero runs allowed (regardless of innings pitched). Most in Rangers team history, passing Nolan Ryan who had 10 such games.
⋅ John Lackey, Max Scherzer, and Danny Salazar, Wednesday: Each struck out at least 10 opponents but still got the loss. Hadn't happened thrice in one day since Sandy Koufax (Dodgers, by a 2-1 score), Bo Belinsky (Angels, 2-0), and Sam Jones (Tigers, in 12 innings) each managed it on June 26, 1962.
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