It's also hard to analyze something that didn't happen. We once did a tongue-in-cheek graphic about Mark Buehrle's perfect game where batters went 0-for-13 against his fastball, 0-for-5 against his changeup, he had nine 1-2-3 innings, the Rays did not advance a runner past first base, you get the idea. (No, it never aired.) But several games this week proved to be more interesting than any no-hitter would have been.
One Is The Loneliest Number
Francisco Lindor began Tuesday's game with a home run for the Indians off Doug Fister. Excellent. As mentioned, we like leadoff hits. (Home runs, even better because not only do they generate notes of their own, you can't have a wishy-washy official scorer who later feels the pressure and changes that lone hit into a four-base error.) Lindor's was the fourth leadoff dinger for Cleveland this season, but the oddity is that they've been hit by four different players (Carlos Santana, Jason Kipnis, Bradley Zimmer). Most teams don't shuffle the lineup that often aside from injuries, and thanks to Kenny Lofton, Grady Sizemore, and some others holding down the top spot for multiple years, the last time Cleveland had four different players hit them in the same season was 1971, when Ted Ford, Graig Nettles, Vada Pinson, and Ted Uhlaender each hit one.
Fister, meanwhile, settled down; after a walk to Edwin Encarnacion later in the 1st, he closed out the inning by retiring Jay Bruce, and then didn't allow another hit until... oh. Ohhhh. He didn't allow another hit. Fister issued only one other walk and one hit-by-pitch for the rest of the game, and retired both of those on double plays. The last eight frames were all three-batter innings; he faced only two over the minimum, and both of those were in the 1st. In so doing, he pitched Boston's first complete-game one-hitter since Jon Lester blanked Toronto on May 10, 2013. But that was indeed a shutout (SHO-1). Tuesday's game was the first "CG-1" (complete-game one-hitter that did not rise to shutout status) for the Red Sox since Pedro Martinez's famous 17-strikeout game against the Yankees on September 10, 1999. The one hit in that contest was a 2nd-inning homer by Chili Davis.
The last time a team had a leadoff homer for its only hit of the game was back on September 3, 1996, when Marquis Grissom did the honors for the Braves at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. However, Reds starter Dave Burba only went six innings in that one (he walked four and threw 99 pitches). Fister was the first pitcher to throw a CG-1 by himself, with the one hit being a leadoff homer, since Jack McDowell did it for the White Sox (in 83 pitches!) on July 14, 1991. The homer was by Paul Molitor.
Nomenclature trivia: Our hierarchy goes PG, NH, FM-X, SHO-X, CG-X, where X is a number. Think on it, we'll 'splain later.
Two Can Be As Bad As One
Although Fister gave up his hit nice and early, Royals starter Danny Duffy waited a little while and got a little too close to that panic zone. Duffy allowed three walks, including one with two outs in the 6th, before Nolan Arenado cranked the Rockies' first hit over the Kauffman Stadium fence. The Rockies' linescore stuck on 2-1-0 for three more innings, primed to become just the third game in team history where a multi-run homer was their only hit, when Jonathan Lucroy hit a 3-2, 2-out pitch for a triple to right field.
It was only the sixth triple in Rockies history hit when down to their final strike, and (not surprisingly) the first to "break up" a one-hitter (if you can do that). Lucroy and Miguel Olivo (May 22, 2010) are the only Rockies to hit a three-bagger at Kauffman. After two walks, and with a 2-0 count on Pat Valaika, closer Kelvin Herrera was pulled from the game with the nebulous "forearm tightness" and Scott Alexander came on for a two-pitch, bases-loaded save. Alas, since a walk is the only thing that can be charged to a pitcher retroactively, Alexander still gets credit for facing the one batter and his line looks fairly unremarkable. But the Rockies didn't get another hit. And that made it just the second time in their history that they'd had multiple base knocks with none of them being singles or doubles. At Cincinnati on May 27, 2012, they had five hits, all homers. All of them were also solo shots and they lost 7-5.
As for the Royals, they gave us another scare on Saturday when Jason Hammel retired the first 16 Cleveland batters before Bradley Zimmer shot one up the middle. Roberto Perez promptly homered to bring him in, and in the 7th Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana both went yard to knock Hammel out of the game. He thus became the first pitcher in Royals history to have a no-hitter through five innings and then give up three home runs after that. Saturday also happened to be the anniversary of the Royals' last no-hitter (and the last one on August 26), by Bret Saberhagen in 1991.
King Of The Hill
Rich Hill (the pitcher, not ZIP code 64779 in western Missouri, seen above) was already one of the great comeback stories of the last few years; after shoulder surgery in 2009 and Tommy John surgery in 2011, he bounced through several minor-league deals (including two starts for our old friends the Long Island Ducks) before a triumphant return to the Red Sox at the end of 2015. Now with the Dodgers, the 37-year-old secured his place in baseball lore by not finishing a no-hitter.
You know the story. Hill is perfect through eight against the Pirates on Wednesday but the game is scoreless. A leadoff error breaks that up in the 9th but Pittsburgh can't bring Jordy Mercer around. The Dodgers fail to score in the 10th. By going back to the (ahem) hill for the 10th, Hill becomes the first Dodgers starter to go past nine innings since Orel Hershiser did it in the final game of the 1989 season (Hershiser tossed 11 full and 169 pitches in a meaningless game with the Braves; the teams finished a combined 44 games out). And he became the oldest pitcher to do it for any team since Dennis Martinez for the Indians on May 6, 1994.
Four pitches later, Hill was out of the game. As was everyone else. Josh Harrison's line-drive homer just inside the foul pole gave the Pirates the 1-0 walkoff and destroyed the no-hitter, the shutout, and the victory. Forgetting the whole "no-hit" thing for a second, it was just the second time in the past 20 years that the Pirates had won a 1-0 extra-inning game via walkoff homer; the other was by Neil Walker on Opening Day 2014 against the Cubs. And it had been more than 40 years since the Dodgers lost such a game; Dave Kingman of the Mets broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the 14th at Shea Stadium on June 17, 1976!
Hill's performance was just the second no-hit bid in major-league history to be broken up by a walkoff hit, and the other is a game we've covered before: Harvey Haddix's famous 12 innings of perfection for the Pirates in 1959. That game would have ended on a homer, but Joe Adcock, who hit it, was called out for passing Hank Aaron, who held up thinking it was in play. So it was officially scored a double, not a home run as in Harrison's case.
It had been 75 seasons since Pittsburgh won any game where they only had one hit, regardless of where in the game it was obtained. That was May 2, 1943, when Vince DiMaggio hit a "little league home run", in this case a double plus an error, in the 4th inning against the Cubs and it stood up for a 1-0 final.
Combined with Fister's game on Tuesday, that meant two pitchers threw the rare "CG-1" (again, a complete game one-hitter but not a shutout) on back-to-back days. The last time that happened was September 17 and 18, 1971, when Houston's Don Wilson gave up only a double to the Reds' Tony Perez (but he scored three batters later on a bases-loaded walk), and then the next day Clay Kirby did it for the Padres (homer by Willie McCovey).
And oh by the way, the Pirates won another 1-0 game on Saturday when pitcher Gerrit Cole homered in the top of the 6th at Cincinnati. That marked the first time in franchise history (all of it, to 1882) that a solo homer by the pitcher had given them a 1-0 win, and the first time they'd ever won two 1-0 games via solo homer (by anyone) in the same week.
Intermission (slash, trivia tangent)
A few years ago we created this Venn Diagram of sorts detailing all the possible pitching outcomes, decisions, special situations, whatever you want to call them:
We all know Perfect Game. By definition, a PG is also an NH (no-hitter) where you FM (faced minimum), but either of those can exist on their own as well. Thanks to the rules of proving boxscores, a Faced Minimum must also be an SHO (shutout), and all of the above fall in the larger category of CG (complete game). Note that it's possible for a no-hitter to not only not be a shutout (four walks can equal one run), but it can even be a loss (hi, Andy Hawkins). The "X" we mentioned earlier just lists the number of hits allowed.
The rest of this diagram: GS = Game Started; obviously the starter is the only one who can also get a CG or any of the higher categories, and the starter also cannot get a hold, save, or blown save since those all involve entering in relief. Thanks to rule 9.19(b), a pitcher cannot also get a win and a save (or, by extension, a hold) in the same game. And everyone who appears in the game gets at least a GP (Game Played), the highest-level rectangle. Unless they injure themselves running out of the dugout.
Hit Me Baby One More Time
Would you believe we're not done with this yet? Kenta Maeda, who had a dueling no-hit bid with Justin Verlander last Sunday, dispatched with that worry early on Friday, surrendering a 2nd-inning tater to Domingo Santana of the Brewers. But that was all. After a pair of walks in the 4th, Maeda set down 15 of the final 16 batters, retired the other on a walk and a double play, and actually secured the one-hitter when his manager challenged a grounder with two outs in the 9th that Ryan Braun was initially ruled to have beaten. Oh yeah, did we mention Maeda, à la Rich Hill, is also a Dodger? They became the first team in at least the live-ball era (linescores before 1910 are not easily searchable, so it's a convenient cutoff) to throw a pair of one-hitters in a three-day span, where the only hit in each game was a home run. And the Dodgers hadn't thrown two one-hitters (at all, regardless of hit value) in a three-game span in that same time period, though they did do it four games apart in 1965. The last team to pull that off at all was the 2013 Nationals, by Gio Gonzalez (April 25) and Jordan Zimmermann (April 26).
Friday's game was a bit less dramatic, obviously, and the Brewers lost (as you generally expect when you only have one hit), but it still marked the first game where Milwaukee had one hit, and it was a home run, since August 29, 2000. That was also against the Dodgers; Lyle Mouton homered off Chan Ho Park in the 16th-to-last game at Milwaukee County Stadium.
Twin-Bills
It rained a lot in some places this week (and if you are able to contribute to hurricane/flooding relief, please do so), but it also rained a bit in April and May, and August seems to be a popular time for making up those games. The Twins and White Sox got scrubbed on May 10, only to play a doubleheader last Monday which was then delayed by more rain (although only for 19 minutes).
Jorge Polanco's 8th-inning homer in the first game brought the Twins to within 7-6 but no closer; the White Sox pieced together seven runs on just six hits, their first time doing that since September 29, 2008, when they beat the Tigers 8-2. That game was itself an "if necessary" makeup of a September 12 rainout; it would never have been played had the Sox not finished a half-game behind the Twins in the AL Central. They then won the makeup game to force a tie for the division, won Game 163 over Minnesota the next day, and the rest is history. Oh wait, they lost the Division Series to Tampa Bay. Who learned a little about rain later in that postseason. But still.
In the nightcap on Monday, the Twins piled up 10 runs on 10 hits, with a 6-run 2nd inning putting the game away early. They hit four homers, but one of those was also by Polanco, making him the first Minnesotan to homer and have 3 RBI in both games of a doubleheader since none other than Harmon Killebrew did it in Milwaukee in the Brewers' first year of existence. That was a Twins sweep by scores of 4-0 and 7-1 on September 1, 1970.
Polanco then went on to homer again in the scheduled single games in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday, making him just the second player in Twins/Senators history to have a four-game home run streak at Comiskey Park (either one, and/or whatever they're calling the new one this month). Marty Cordova was the other, and he needed two seasons to do it, going yard in the last two games of a series in September 1997, and then in the first two games of the Twins' next visit, in June 1998.
Fish Out Of Water
The Marlins haven't worried much about rain for the past few seasons, but they do still have to play about 70 games a year at places that don't have a roof. One of those is Philadelphia, where rain on April 25 postponed Nick Pivetta's major-league debut. Fittingly, Pivetta ended up pitching the second game of Tuesday's resulting doubleheader, and he probably would have liked that rained out also. Pivetta surrendered seven hits and six earned runs while getting just four outs; a three-run tater by Christian Yelich finally knocked him out. He was the first Phillies hurler in two years to give up 6 ER so quickly (Jerome Williams managed it on only two outs in June 2015), but it was also Pivetta's third start this season where he gave up 6+ earned without finishing the 3rd inning. Williams and Severino Gonzalez both did that twice in 2015, but Pivetta is the first pitcher in Phillies history to do it three times in one season (earned runs have been kept officially in the NL since 1912). Not to worry, though; the Phils' career record for that is six such games, and it's held by Steve Carlton. So there's still hope.
Nick Williams, Andres Blanco, and Tommy Joseph would homer later in Tuesday's second game, and while not enough to overcome the deficit, those last two created a whole other storyline. You see, the first game of the doubleheader had also been a homer-fest with the Marlins coming out on top 12-8. Dustin McGowan gave up three longballs in the last two innings to make the final score closer than it needed to be, duplicating his "feat" from June 29, 2016. He's just the seventh reliever in Marlins history to allow three homers in an outing (no matter how long), and the only one to do it twice.
Joseph and Blanco hit two of those dingers off McGowan to bring the Phillies' total for the game to five. Even for the Phillies, that was somewhat of an achievement; the last time they hit five homers and still managed to lose was a 13-10 outburst against the Twins on June 19, 2010. That was also the last time both teams hit at least four homers in a game at Citizens Bank Park (it's happened five times total since its opening in 2004).
So when Blanco homered again in the 4th inning of Game 2, he became the first Phillie to go yard in both games of a DH since Raul Ibañez did it at Nationals Park on May 16, 2009. And when Joseph homered again in the 6th, he became the first to do it since, well, Blanco two innings prior. And the last time two Phillies both homered in both games of a twinbill? That's Del Ennis and Willie Jones in a split with the Cubs at Shibe Park on June 5, 1949.
All told, Tuesday was a good day to have outfield seats or hang out in Ashburn Alley. The two games combined featured 14 homers, the most in any doubleheader since the White Sox and Rangers also clubbed 14 on August 28, 1998. However, the first game of that twinbill went 10 innings; the last 18-inning DH with that many homers is the one which still holds the record (15): May 30, 1956, between the Cubs and then-Milwaukee Braves.
Bottom Of The Bag
⋅ Kolten Wong, Wednesday: First Cardinal with three hits, three runs scored, and two stolen bases since Ray Lankford on May 7, 1997. Last to do it from the leadoff spot was also Lankford, May 6, 1992, against the Giants.
⋅ Gary Sanchez: On Tuesday, became first Yankee catcher with a multi-homer game in Detroit since Thurman Munson on September 3, 1973. Also homered Wed and Thu, and is first Yankee to homer in three straight games in Detroit since Tino Martinez at Tiger Stadium, June 23-25, 1997.
⋅ Clayton Richard, Sunday: First pitcher in Padres history to hit a multi-run homer accounting for all of team's runs in a game.
⋅ Manny Machado, Wednesday: First Oriole to hit two walkoff homers in less than a week (see also last Saturday) since Fred Lynn in back-to-back games on May 10-11, 1985.
⋅ Curtis Granderson, Monday: First player in MLB history to hit grand slams for two different teams in less than a week. Previous record by Don Lenhardt (June 2 for Boston, June 9 for Detroit) in 1952.
⋅ Cesar Hernandez, Friday: Second Phillies leadoff batter ever to have a triple, two doubles, and three RBIs, joining Connie Ryan (at Cubs), June 24, 1953.
⋅ Eric Hosmer, Wednesday: Fifth player in Royals history with three hits and four RBIs including a walkoff homer. Others are Bob Hamelin (July 25, 1994), Frank White (1986), Amos Otis (1973), and George Brett (three times).
⋅ Eugenio Suarez, Tuesday: First Reds batter to have two homers, score three runs, and drive in five in a loss since Dave Parker, also against the Cubs, on September 7, 1985.
⋅ Joey Votto, Sunday: Second game of career drawing five walks but never scoring a run (also September 23, 2013). Only other player in live-ball era to do that twice is Barry Bonds.
Did You Know?
And by the way, the last "FM" in the majors that doesn't rise to either "NH" or "PG" status, still belongs to Josh Collmenter in 2014; it's one of our favorite occurrences at Kernels. There have been just 51 in the live-ball era, versus 195 solo no-hitters.
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