Sweet Home Chicago
Because it seems like any air travel must pass through O'Hare at some point, let's start with a recap of the week on the north side of Chicago. It started on Monday with the Cubs' 15-5 pounding of the Reds in which they piled up 17 hits. Usually scores like that land on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, but in this case the famous Wrigley Field wind was only listed at 7 mph, and the Cubs only hit three round-trippers. Their last home game where they scored 15+ with three or fewer homers was eight years earlier to the day, a 17-2 beatdown of the Pirates on August 14, 2009.
Jon Jay was among the Cubs who did not homer; he did, however, do everything else. Jay collected a single, a double, a triple, and three runs scored, something no Cubs hitter had done since Marlon Byrd on July 24, 2011. And no Cub had done it from the leadoff spot since the great Lou Brock against the Giants on June 5, 1963. (Brock, predictably, also stole a base; Jay, um, did not.)
After a lackluster 2-1 game on Tuesday (wind status: "variable"), the Cubs won a wild game on Wednesday, almost literally. Blake Wood's wild pitch in the bottom of the 9th brought home Javier Baez from third for the "bounce-off". The last time the Cubs beat Cincinnati in bounce-off fashion was on September 22, 1967, the offending bounce being by Ted Abernathy who had just entered the game in the 10th inning (we have been unable to determine if it was his first pitch) to score Billy Williams.
The Reds, meanwhile, had also committed a bounce-off last Saturday against the Brewers. They became the first team to do it twice in a week since the 1977 Indians lost to the Yankees on September 27 and then Toronto in the first game of a season-ending doubleheader on October 2. (They won the second game, slash season finale, to finish "only" 28½ games out.)
Aside from that wild pitch, the biggest event of Wednesday was Anthony Rizzo's grand slam in the bottom of the 1st inning. Rizzo bats cleanup most of the time. Obviously the first batter in a game who has the mathematical potential to hit a grand slam is the fourth one. But Rizzo became the first Cub to actually do it since Hank Leiber against the Red Sox on September 12, 1939. Leiber's shot knocked starter Bill Posedel out of the game; John Lanning would throw five innings of relief and the slam held up for an 8-3 win.
Thursday's finale with the Reds looked a lot like Monday's opener; after 25 hits and eight homers (wind status: "16 mph, out to center"), it finally settled 13-10 in favor of Cincinnati. The 13-10 final was the first such score in the majors this year; our famous matrix now awaits 13-9, 13-12, and several 14-somethings. Every score of 12-X and lower has been done.
13-10 is a pretty big score by modern standards, but equally fun was that Thursday's game had separate connections to both of the two highest-scoring games in MLB history. Six of those eight home runs were hit by Chicagoans, making them the first team in the majors this year to hit six homers and lose. The last time the Cubs did it was on May 17, 1979, in a (yes) 23-22 loss to the Phillies. And that's the second-highest score in history.
Meanwhile, the Reds got nine of those 13 runs in the top of the 2nd inning as they sent up 13 batters and collected eight hits. The Cardinals dropped a nine-run 8th inning back on July 21 to beat the Cubs 11-4, and 12 days before that, the Pirates hung a 10-spot in the last game before the All-Star break. That made 2017 just the second season in Wrigley Field's 104-year history where the manual scoreboard has needed the "9" card (or higher) three times. The other was 1922. And two of the three 9-run frames in that season came in the same game: August 25, also against the Phillies, in (still) the highest combined score in MLB history.
While we're in Chicago, it's worth pointing out that the White Sox dropped a 9-8 decision at Texas later on Thursday. It marks the first time that both Chicago teams scored 8 runs and lost on the same day since August 3, 1994.
And one more Cubs nugget to round out their week: When Javier Baez homered in the 8th inning against Toronto on Friday, he destroyed one note (and one baseball) but also created another. (He did not create another baseball, as far as we know.) After Thursday's six-homer loss, the Cubs were on the verge of following that with a zero-homer win for just the second time in team history (April 1955 was the other). Instead that longball was Baez's 20th of the season, joining Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, and Kyle Schwarber in the "20 HR at age 25 or younger" club. Only two other teams in history have boasted four members of that club: The 2007 Brewers (Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, J.J. Hardy, Corey Hart) and 1979 Expos (Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Larry Parrish, Ellis Valentine). Neither of those teams made the postseason either.
New York Minute
Although the novelty of the Mets playing the Yankees (or the Cubs/Sox, Angels/Dodgers, etc.) has kind of worn off through 20 years of interleague play, it still makes for some interesting notes, especially when one of them sweeps the other. Luis Cessa versus Rafael Montero probably wasn't exactly a marquee matchup to open the series Monday; Cessa was already replacing the injured Masahiro Tanaka, and then he got injured himself. Cessa retired in the 5th inning after suffering something called a "right rhomboid" injury (he's now on the DL).
Chad Green not only got eight outs in relief, he got half of them via strikeout and didn't allow a hit. That marked his second relief appearance this year of 2⅔ innings with zero hits and four strikeouts; he also did it against the Red Sox on June 6. And the last Yankee pitcher to do that twice in a season was Joe Page in 1947.
Speaking of injuries, the Mets found themselves third-baseman-less on Wednesday when Wilmer Flores was scratched during batting practice due to sore ribs. Jose Reyes, who had previously played 3B, was also on the shelf, so Terry Collins used what can only be described as a platoon infield, switching Travis d'Arnaud and Asdrubal Cabrera back and forth depending on which side the batter was hitting from and whether there was a potential double play.
If you don't feel like counting, there's 23 separate entries there, meaning 22 switches. That's not something that has an official record, or is really even searchable (it just boils down to, they both played 2B and 3B). But it was only the second time in Mets history that two players had seen both positions in the same game. On April 18, 1992, in Montréal, Willie Randolph pinch hit for starting 3B Dave Magadan, but then stayed in the game at 2B, moving Junior Noboa over to third. Later in the game, Bill Pecota replaced Noboa in a double switch, and then moved over to 2B as part of a double-switch for Randolph. (The Mets lost, 8-6.)
(Not to be outdone, Tommy La Stella played all three bases in Monday's game (though 1B was only for one batter), becoming the first Cub in the live-ball era to pull that off.)
The Yankees completed the Subway Sweep on Thursday with a 7-5 victory in which Gary Sanchez drove in five of the seven. Only one other Yankee has ever had a 5-RBI game in Queens, and it came when they were the home team! During the renovation of Yankee Stadium, when the Bombers "borrowed" Shea Stadium for two seasons, it was leadoff hitter Roy White who drove in five on September 21, 1974. The Yankees beat the Indians 14-7 to temporarily take a one-game lead in the AL East, but starting the next day, the Orioles would win their last nine contests of the season, and the division by two games.
Curtis Granderson did leave his final mark on New York, however, hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th to make the 7-1 score a little more respectable. It was the first Mets slam in B9 that wasn't a walkoff since Carl Everett hit one against the Expos on September 13, 1997. Everett's slam did tie the game to send it to extras, where the Mets won on a Bernard Gilkey homer. Until Grandy, the Mets had never hit one when trailing by 5 or more.
And of course, Granderson was traded to the Dodgers after the game on Thursday, so he will also go down as the 12th player in the live-ball era, and first Met, to hit a grand slam in his final game with a team. The most recent two did it at the end of the season before switching organizations over the winter: Joey Butler of the Rays in 2015, and Ramon Santiago for the Reds in 2014.
It Never Rains In Southern California
In the winter you might want to escape New York or Chicago in favor of someplace like San Diego, which is rumored to have "seasons" but we're skeptical.
The Padres entertained the Phillies in a three-game series this week, and like many people, Phils rookie Rhys Hopkins found San Diego to his liking. Hopkins cranked two homers in the series opener on Monday, in just his fifth big-league game. No Phillie had posted a multi-homer game so quickly into a career since infielder Don Money did it on Opening Day 1969 against the Cubs. (Money had played in four games the previous September, so it was also his fifth career appearance. Money, by the way, made under $25,000 that season.)
Despite Hopkins' efforts, the Phillies lost Monday's game 7-4 behind the efforts of Padres third baseman Cory Spangenberg. He led off the 4th with a single, the 6th with a walk (and scored the tying run), and the 7th with a home run, scoring on all three trips. All told he became the first Padres batter with three hits, three runs scored, a walk, a stolen base, and a homer since Ryan Klesko did it, also against the Phillies, on April 26, 2001. The four other Padres to post that line before Klesko were Ken Caminiti (1996), John Kruk (1988), Luis Salazar (1983), and Dave Winfield (1979).
Spangenberg would then hit a homer and a double in Tuesday's game, making him the second player in Padres history to collect six or more total bases in three straight games. Outfielder Kevin McReynolds did that from September 20-22, 1986.
On Wednesday it was pitching's turn to shine, with Clayton Richard throwing a three-hit shutout with only one walk as the Padres took the finale 3-0. San Diego, which of course has never thrown a no-hitter, hadn't even thrown an individual shutout in almost three years; Andrew Cashner's SHO-2, also against the Phillies on September 15, 2014, was their last. They had the second-longest drought of shutouts in the majors; the Orioles are the only team to have gone longer without one, and then only by 12 days.
The Padres got jump-started in the 4th inning Wednesday when Wil Myers' two-out single plated the first run of the game. On the next pitch Myers stole second. With a 3-2 count to Austin Hedges, and two outs, Myers ran on the pitch, which happened to be ball four, but he ended up stealing third even though he wasn't forced. Two pitches later, those crafty Padres pulled off the delayed steal when Hedges broke for second and drew the throw, and Myers stole home for a 2-0 lead. He's certainly not the first Padre to steal three bases in a game (think Tony Gwynn here), but he is the first ever to steal all three bases on the same trip around.
The aggressive baserunning may have been to counter Phillies starter Nick Pivetta, who was matching Richard with an impressive 11-strikeout performance before giving up a single and a walk (to Myers, of course) to start the 6th. He wound up becoming the first Phillies pitcher in the live-ball era to fan 11 opponents in an outing of 5 innings or less. And the last Phillie to strike out 11, but also give up three runs and lose, was Roy Halladay's complete game against the Diamondbacks six years earlier to the day (August 16, 2011).
Manny Being Manny
It was the second grand slam ever hit by the Orioles at Safeco Field since its opening in 1999. Ramon Hernandez smacked one in a 14-4 win on May 23, 2006. They hit six at the Kingdome, and alas (yes, we checked) none at Sick's Seattle Stadium, home of the Pilots in 1969.
Tim Beckham led off both Monday's and Wednesday's games with a solo homer, the first Oriole to hit two in a series since Melvin Mora did it in back-to-back games with the Phillies on June 28 and 29, 2002. The last to do it on the road was Brady Anderson in Toronto in September 1996.
But back to Manny, who decided to regain that spotlight on Friday back at Camden Yards. The hitter-friendly park, made even more so by a 42-minute rain delay, yielded four Angels homers in the first two innings, the fifth time in team history that they had connected for four longballs in the first two innings (though one of those others came last September).
The Orioles would fight back from an early 5-0 hole with five homers of their own, including a pair from Machado in the 3rd and 5th innings. Mike Trout homered in the top of the 5th to finally knock Jeremy Hellickson out of the game; he became the first Orioles pitcher to surrender five taters since Mike Mussina did it on July 1, 1994. That game, a 14-7 win that was also against the Angels, is also the only other game in Camden Yards history where 10 total homers were hit (again, five by each team; Tim Salmon and Jeffrey Hammonds each had a pair).
But it was with the 10th and final homer that Machado showed us why he deserves his own section. Trailing 7-5, the Orioles loaded the bases with one out on two singles and a walk. You know the rest. Machado became just the third player ever to hit a walkoff grand slam for his third (or fourth) homer of the game. The others are within the last few seasons as well: Khris Davis for the Athletics last May 17, and Joey Votto for the Reds on May 13, 2012.
Machado had another 3-HR, 7-RBI game against the White Sox last August; there have only been seven such games in Orioles/Browns team history (at least since 1920 when RBI were officially recorded), and Eddie Murray is the only other player to have two. Cal Ripken, Curt Blefary, and Hall of Famer Leon "Goose" Goslin in 1932 make up the rest of that list.
Matt Wieters had the Orioles' previous walkoff slam, on April 18, 2013, against the Rays; before that you have to go back to Harold Baines in 1999. It's ironic that Wieters is now with the Nationals; although he didn't hit a walkoff slam last Sunday, Howie Kendrick did. And that makes it the first season in major-league history where Washington and Baltimore (any combination of teams) have both hit one.
And thanks to the lead changing hands on the final pitch, neither Hellickson nor Angels starter Andrew Heaney took the loss, despite the fact that they both allowed at least four homers. There's been only one other game in MLB history where that happened, between Ferguson Jenkins and the Giants' Ron Bryant at Wrigley on August 26, 1972. That game was a 10-9 Cubs walkoff (after both starters were out, obviously) when Joe Pepitone got plunked with the bases loaded.
Ring Around The Rosario
Earlier we touched on Anthony Rizzo hitting a grand slam as the fourth batter of the game and how mathematically he's the first player who can hit one. Twins outfielder (and former New Britain Rock Cat) Eddie Rosario decided to defy that logic on Sunday (after we wrote it, of course) by hitting a 1st-inning slam out of the number-2 spot in the order. Rosario didn't technically break the laws of baseball (that we know of), he just happened to fall into the rare instance where a team bats around in the 1st inning. So he was both the second batter of the game (when he grounded out) and the 11th. Rosario's was the first grand slam in Twins history (1961) to be hit in the 1st inning by one of the top three batters in the order. The last such homer for the Senators was by Hall of Fame LF Heinie Manush, who did it in a 15-2 rout of the Indians on June 28, 1933.
Rosario's slam capped a nine-run 1st inning for the Twins, their most in an opening frame since hanging a 10 against Oakland on April 27, 1980. And they needed those runs; the Athletics fought back to score 11 in the game, although the Twins scored 10 more after the 1st and won 20-11.
Now With Less "genberg"
The other source of a lot of our "Span"ning this week was Giants leadoff hitter (and Former New Britain Rock Cat) Denard Span. While he started Tuesday's game in Miami with a lineout to second, that was the only blemish in the game, as he homered his next time up and later collected two singles, a walk, and a steal of third. It was Span's second game this season with three hits, three runs, a homer, and a stolen base; he also did it June 30 against the Pirates. And that made him the first Giants leadoff man with two such games in the same season since Bobby Bonds in 1973.
Saturday's game started off in even more interesting fashion when Span roped a ball off the bricks in Triples Alley and turned it into an inside-the-park home run. "IHRs", as we score them, are up just as much as out-of-the-park homers; there have been 13 this season (still with over a month to go) versus nine last year. The last season with more was 2011 (16), and combined with the ones Daniel Descalso, Byron Buxton, and Nick Delmonico legged out on Thursday and Friday, it was the most prolific week for IHRs in two decades. The last time there were four of them in a three-day span was May 26 and 27, 1997, which actually saw five just on those two days (and eight total from the 24th to the 29th).
More notably, the last Giants batter to lead off a game with an IHR was Johnny Rucker, who did it (where else?) at the Polo Grounds on June 20, 1945, against the (then-Boston) Braves.
Early Rounds
Span, and the Angels, weren't the only ones homering early in games this week. Friday's games, all combined, featured 20 dingers hit in either the 1st or 2nd inning, the most in any given day's play since there were 21 on July 2, 2002.
The day's real winner came from Pittsburgh, where the Cardinals started with a 1st-inning shot from Tommy Pham, followed in the 2nd by Matt Carpenter, and the 3rd by Paul DeJong to jump to an early 6-2 lead. That marked the team's first time homering in each of the first three innings since July 27, 2012, at Wrigley Field. But guess how the Pirates got their 2. Those would be homers by Josh Harrison in the 1st and former Cardinal (and postseason hero) David Freese in the 2nd.
Even we had to run this search twice out of disbelief, but it was the first game with a home run in each of the first five half-innings (T1, B1, T2, B2, T3) since August 7, 1984! The Tigers and Red Sox hooked up in a game at Fenway Park where, respectively, Alan Trammell, Bill Buckner, Howard Johnson, Tony Armas, and Lance Parrish all went yard. The Red Sox won 12-7, but of course, the Tigers still got a better end to their '84 campaign.
Bottom Of The Bag
⋅ Scooter Gennett, Monday: Became fourth player ever to have hit four home runs in a game, and also pitched (anytime, not same game). Bobby Lowe, Rocky Colavito, and Mark Whiten are the others, but none of them also did it in the same season.
⋅ Athletics, Sunday: First time scoring 3+ runs with 0 RBI (two errors and a passed ball) in their Oakland history. Last such game was as Kansas City, at the White Sox on August 16, 1966.
⋅ Red Sox, Tuesday: First team to turn a triple play and have an 8-run inning in the same game since the Mets did it on May 17, 2002.
⋅ Jose Abreu, Saturday: First White Sock to have four hits, including a homer and a triple, in a loss since Ken Singleton against the Royals on July 6, 1999.
⋅ Yu Darvish, Wednesday: First Dodgers pitcher to give up a leadoff home run on his birthday since Andy Messersmith (to the Braves' Ralph Garr) on August 6, 1975.
⋅ Justin Upton, Friday: First Tiger to come to the plate needing a triple for the cycle, and wind up hitting a second homer instead, since Carlos Peña at Kansas City, May 27, 2004.
⋅ Albert Suarez, Saturday: First Giants reliever to strike out seven batters and allow no more than two hits since Scott Garrelts in a three-inning save at Philadelphia on May 22, 1985.
⋅ Byron Buxton, Friday: First Twins batter with a triple and an inside-the-park homer since Greg Gagne actually hit two IHRs in one game (still the last occurrence) on October 4, 1986.
Did You Know?
"Goose" Goslin did not get his nickname because his last name is so close to "gosling", which is of course a baby goose. It was supposedly ascribed to him by a writer for the Washington Star during his first callup by the Senators in 1921, due to his habit of
flapping his arms while tracking fly balls.
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