Models Of Efficiency

Do More With Less.

It's a phrase many companies have trotted out in the past few years, in the name of "efficiency" which of course is just code for "money". Hot-take alert, there's a lot of money involved in baseball too. And this week some teams got a lot of "employee productivity" and some, well, didn't.


It Only Takes One

With one exception (trivia time!), the only possible way to win a baseball game is by scoring at least one run, and thus the most efficient win would be one which only requires one run (a 1-0 game). We had a spate of those this week, some with their own additional quirks. The Mariners on Wednesday started Marco Gonzales against the Athletics' Daniel Gossett. Marco allowed just two hits in seven scoreless innings, the first Seattle pitcher to do that in Oakland since Feliz Hernandez on July 7, 2007. Gossett, meanwhile, threw seven innings himself on just four hits, didn't allow an earned run, and lost. The last A's pitcher to pull that off was Kenny Rogers at Dodger Stadium on June 10, 1998. And the reason Gossett lost was because of an error on shortstop Marcus Semien; it was ruled that Guillermo Heredia would not otherwise have scored on the play, so the lone run of the game was unearned and there was no RBI credited. It's the fourth time in Mariners history that they won a game without driving in any runs, and if it feels like we looked this up before, it's because two of them have been this month! They did it in Minneapolis on the 14th when Dee Gordon scored from second on a sac bunt gone awry. The others were a 1-0 win in Anaheim in 2002, and a 1984 game against the Tigers where two runs scored on a "little league home run".

Honorable mention to the Indians, who also won a 1-0 game at Wrigley Field on Wednesday thanks to Michael Brantley's RBI single. Cleveland's last 1-0 win in Chicago was before interleague play and thus on the other side of Madison Avenue. It was the finale of the 1989 campaign (the next-to-last at old Comiskey) on a Dion James pinch-hit single in the 8th.

(Trivia answer: Score no runs and have the other team forfeit. There hasn't been any forfeit in the majors since 1995, and the last 0-run win? If you guessed the ill-fated White Sox "Disco Demolition Night" in 1979, well, that's groovy, man.)


Working From Home(r)

Our trivia desk can't come up with any more efficient way to score than hitting a home run (ideally on the first pitch). And you might have heard that the Yankees did a lot of that over the last 10 days.

It started innocently enough, with last weekend's pair of four-homer games in Kansas City relegated to "bottom of the bag" status. The Bombers then headed to homer-friendly Globe Life Park in Arlington and posted five more dingers in Monday's series opener. 21-year-old Gleyber Torres launched two of them to become the 14th player in Yankees history with a multi-homer game batting 9th. The last had been Russell Martin who did it twice in 2011.

New York also tallied five doubles in the 10-5 win, the fourth road game in their history with five two-baggers and five round-trippers. The last was April 9, 2013, in Cleveland. But that also gave the Yankees at least eight extra-base hits for the third straight game, something only accomplished in the live-ball era by the 2003 Red Sox, 1999 Indians, and 1935 Senators. None of those teams duplicated the feat a fourth straight time.

And, well, neither did the Yankees. Starter Domingo German got knocked around for six earned runs, though on only four hits. He became the first Yankee starter with that line since Ian Kennedy did it against the Rays on April 4, 2008. And while late homers by Miguel Andujar and Austin Romine teased another classic comeback, they would lose 6-4 and have only three extra-base hits in the game. The third, however, was another solo homer, this one by Torres again. He thus became the youngest Yankee to homer in back-to-back games since Melky Cabrera did it against the White Sox on August 9 and 10, 2006. And it did become only the third time in Yankees history where they had hit three homers in four straight games. One of the other streaks was last June, and the first was way back in July 1956.

Wednesday's series finale was the long-awaited slugfest, with the Rangers scoring seven unanswered runs for the strange final of 12-10. But there were those homers again, four of them, and including Torres for the third game in a row. That took him way out of Melky Cabrera territory and placed him as the youngest Yankee ever to go deep in three straight games. And Rangers starter Doug Fister got bailed out by the comeback after giving up 11 hits and eight runs. The last Texas pitcher to do that in a game the team ended up winning was our friend Kenny Rogers again, against Oakland on May 6, 2000. And the last time the Yankees hit four homers, scored 10 runs, and lost was-- wait for it-- a 12-10 game in Arlington on the 23rd of the month. It was August 1998, and Jorge Posada's two longballs couldn't overcome Orlando Hernandez getting tagged for seven runs.

Back home on Friday, the Yankees collected only two runs on five hits in the series opener with Anaheim, but still managed to win thanks to (who else?) Gleyber Torres's go-ahead homer in the 7th. We've already established that he's the youngest Yankee to homer in three straight, but now he's the youngest player for any team to homer in four straight since Giancarlo Stanton in 2011. And combined with his walkoff shot on May 6, that Friday dinger also made Torres the first Yankee under the age of 22 to hit two go-ahead homers in the 7th inning or later since first baseman John Ellis hit one in both halves of a doubleheader at Cleveland on May 24, 1970.


Bonus Track
We can't have a week with two notes about Kenny Rogers the pitcher and not link to at least one performance by Kenny Rogers the gambler.


Downsizing

Packing efficiently is always a plus, especially when you have to go through Customs. The Angels took their bags north of the border to Toronto this week, losing Tuesday's game 5-3 before defeating the Jays in the final two games of the series. That Tuesday game featured only four Angels hits, and that came on the heels of Sunday's finale with the Rays where they scored five runs on just four hits. That marked only the second time in franchise history that the Angels had four or fewer hits in back-to-back games but still scored at least three runs in both. The other contests were both losses to Kansas City on September 24 and 25, 1977.

Toronto-- who has to pack for 81 games in the States every season-- was also pretty efficient with those five runs on Tuesday, scoring all of them in the 1st inning and just waiting as the Angels chipped away. The Jays' last game with five or more runs, all in the 1st, was an 8-5 win at Baltimore on September 26, 2007.

Wednesday's game was a 5-4 Angels win in which they recorded exactly zero extra-base hits. Trailing 3-1 going to the 9th, they managed to load the bases before Shohei Ohtani hit a game-tying two-run single. Ohtani then stole second to put two more runners in scoring position, and Andrelton Simmons came through with the go-ahead single to score two more. That was the first time in Angels history that they'd had both of those hits (tying two-run single and go-ahead two single) in the 9th inning or later, much less the first time they were back-to-back. It was also the first time the Angels had ever won a game in Toronto, or scored five runs in one, without an extra-base hit (Rogers Centre is kinda known for those). Prior to Wednesday they had been 0-15 and scored a max of four runs in games without an XBH.


Your Workspace Is Un-Kemp-t

Over in the quiet corner we call the AL West, the Astros have, well, quietly, been battling the Yankees and Red Sox for the best record in the majors. On Wednesday they ran that mark to 32-18, the second-best 50-game start in team history. You might guess that the first-best (34-16) was last year, and we know how that turned out. But on Tuesday they slayed the Giants with an 11-2 win that featured 5 RBI from an unlikely source-- number-nine hitter Tony Kemp, who had just 12 RBI in his half-season (81 games) of major-league experience prior to that. Kemp also pulled that off with only two hits, and both of them were singles. They were both hit with runners on second and third, and he tacked on a 6th-inning sac fly for the heck of it. Kemp is only the fourth player in Astros history, at any spot in the order, to have 5 RBI in a game without an extra-base hit, and Sean Berry (both in 1996) is two of the others. The first was Jeff Leonard in 1979. And since RBI was first kept as an official stat by the leagues in 1920, only six number-nine hitters have had five of them without an XBH thrown in. Milwaukee's Scott Fletcher was the previous one, back on August 28, 1992. The rest of the list is Gary Allenson (BOS 1982), Freddie Patek (KC 1979), Johnny Murphy (NYY 1936) and our old friend Van Lingle Mungo (BKN 1935).

J.D. Davis, meanwhile, was on base for all three of Kemp's run-scoring events, but he walked on all three occasions and had only a strikeout as an official at-bat. He thus became the 14th player in Astros history to score three runs in a game where he didn't get a hit; the last was Lance Berkman against the Pirates on August 9, 2006.


Intermission
Because we haven't trotted this out yet this season, let's take a moment to reacquaint ourselves with the Van Lingle Mungo song.


A Scooter Might Help

Thanks to a rain delay, Tuesday's game between the Pirates and Reds actually started five minutes later than that Giants/Astros tilt mentioned above. Which gave Scooter Gennett the chance to "boxscore-watch" (not really, but roll with it). While Tony Kemp was piling up 5 RBI on just two hits, Scooter hit a 1st-inning RBI double and then a grand slam in the 5th inning to, at least temporarily, match him. And then, after Kemp's sac fly in the 5th, Scooter said, hey, I can hit one of those too, doing so in the 7th inning to drive in six runs on just two hits. The last Reds batter with 6 RBI on two hits was Devin Mesoraco against the Marlins on August 10, 2014; he also had a grand slam.

In that same game, Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart-- who had never batted higher than fifth-- was slotted to bat second. And he became part of those 6 RBI for Scooter, recording three hits and scoring twice. In the live-ball era, only three other Reds catchers have done that while batting in the top third of the order: Johnny Bench seven times, Smoky Burgess five times (all in 1955), and the random outlier that is Jason LaRue against the Cubs on August 9, 2005.

Meanwhile, Scooter wasn't done demonstrating his proficiencies for the week; on Saturday he hit a 1st-inning home run but then had sort of a conundrum. His remaining four at-bats, there was only one baserunner total. So he can't really pile up a bunch of RBIs unless he just keeps homering. And been there, done that. So instead he just hit singles. Every time. Four of them. That would be a five-hit game with only one run scored and one driven in (both on the homer). If you bet on the last Cincinnati hitter with that line to be Pete Rose (at Dodger Stadium, August 1, 1975), well, you just moved up in the bonus pool.


Falling Behind

This week we also had our share of teams who appeared to be doing a lot of work but obtaining very few results. Might be time for an "HR" intervention.

The Braves had a three-game series in Philadelphia this week and proceeded to get shut out twice while somehow winning the middle game 3-1. Atlanta hadn't been shut out multiple times in the same series in Philly since July 5-8, 1984, and that was the only time it happened at Veterans Stadium. Before that it was July 27 and 28, 1968, at Connie Mack Stadium (the Vet opened in '71).

That middle game, with the 3-1 win, was made possible by rookie phenom Ozzie Albies, who led off and scored all three Braves runs with two hits and a walk to set the table for the batters after him. Amazingly, no Braves leadoff hitter had scored 3+ runs, and had that be every run for the team, since Ray Powell did it at Wrigley Field on September 25, 1921! The last time it happened in a win was by Bill Collins in Cincinnati (at "The Palace Of The Fans") on May 24, 1910.


Hit 'Em Again, Hit 'Em Again

Hits are generally a good thing (if you're the offensive team), but in most cases you can't just get a hit and be done with it. There are further action steps that need to be followed, things like stealing bases, having additional players get hits after you, etc. Several teams learned that lesson this week, and some even dared to repeat it.

The White Sox had 10 base knocks in Monday's series opener with the Orioles, including four doubles, plus five walks. They had two of those 15 runners thrown out on the bases by Trey Mancini, and stranded 11 of them for a 3-2 loss. They hadn't done that combo of 10 hits, 4 XBH, and = 2 runs in nearly four years. So on Tuesday they did it again, this time recording zero runs on nine hits through the first seven innings before putting together a late comeback in the 8th. This one was a Sox win, 3-2, but on 13 hits and again with 4 XBH. The South Siders hadn't gotten double-digit hits, but three or fewer runs, off the same opponent in back-to-back games since August 9 and 10, 1989, against Oakland. Incidentally, the Sox may have taken some pregame tips from the O's, who just last Sunday put together the first 0-13-0 linescore in nearly a decade.

That 8th-inning comeback happened after O's starter Kevin Gausman was out of the game, meaning he had the very strange line of allowing nine hits but zero runs. No Baltimore pitcher had done that since Rick Sutcliffe at Seattle on August 30, 1992. And much of the reason the Sox didn't convert any of those is because Gausman also struck out 10. No pitcher for any team had done that plus the 9-and-0 part since Roger Clemens threw a complete-game 10-hit shutout against the Yankees (for Boston) on September 30, 1987.

And Clemens at least got the win in that game. No pitcher in (at least) the live-ball era had done it in a loss, and the last one to do it and have his team not win, is a technicality of sorts. Chris Short of the Phillies and Rob Gardner of the Mets both threw 15 shutout innings on October 2, 1965 (Short had the nine hits and 18 strikeouts); the game was eventually declared a tie after the 18th. Even though the National League had abolished its 1 am curfew the previous year, New York City still had one that applied on Saturday nights.

After a brief interruption for an 11-1 win on Wednesday, the Sox were right back at it in the series finale with the O's on Thursday. This time instead of squandering the hit opportunities, they just never had any. After a hit batter and a dropped third strike, Jose Rondon hit a three-run homer for one of just two Chicago hits. (Omar Narvaez singled in the 7th.) It was the first time in eight years that the White Sox had only two hits but still managed to score three runs (April 7, 2010, vs Cleveland). And that futility was courtesy of Dylan Bundy, who threw a complete-game two-hitter with 14 strikeouts, just the fourth such outing in Orioles history. Erik Bedard on July 7, 2007, had been the most recent; Mike Mussina (2000) and Bob Turley (1954) had the others. And Bundy took his place alongside Ewell Blackwell of the Reds as the only pitchers in the live-ball era to throw a CG-2 with 14 strikeouts and somehow also give up three runs. Blackwell did it in similar fashion (three-run homer after a walk and an HBP) in a 10-inning walkoff win over the Cubs on July 1, 1950.

The White Sox were not the only Chicago team bitten by the "can't convert hits into runs" bug. Over on the North Side (a rare case of both teams being home at the same time), the Cubs dropped a 10-1 decision to Cleveland on Tuesday night, with the one run being a pinch-hit homer by Ian Happ in the 9th. It was the most runs the Indians had ever scored at Wrigley Field, and would have been their biggest shutout ever against an NL opponent, well, until. Along the way the Cubs got a triple from Javier Baez and a double from Kris Bryant, who were both promptly stranded. And that made it the first Cubs game in over a half-century where they had gotten 10 hits, including a team cycle, and only scored one run (on the homer that's predicated by having a cycle). Ernie Banks had the solo homer, and Ron Santo the triple (but didn't score), against the Phillies on April 19, 1964.


Have Good Walking Sox

If you only have to travel 90 feet, walking is probably the most efficient way... except in baseball where it usually takes five, six, seven pitches, involves no time pressure of beating a play at first base, and there's a lot of nothing going on. To their credit, the Red Sox are near the bottom of the majors in drawing walks this year, so it was particularly unusual when Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi combined for five of them on Wednesday. "Beni" had the first 3-BB game by a Bostonian this year (only Giants and Dodgers remain without one), and even stranger is the fact that neither player ever scored. Two of the walks got erased on double plays, and the others were all stranded. It's only the third time in the live-ball era that the starting 1- and 2-hitters for the Red Sox combined for five walks but zero runs. Julio Lugo and Kevin Youkilis did it on April 22, 2007, and the original pairing was Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett against the White Sox on April 27, 1989.

Benintendi, meanwhile, came back with a solo homer, a triple, and a single in Saturday's 8-6 win over that former Boston team, the Braves. It had been exactly eight years to the day since any Red Sox batter missed the cycle by the double; Adrian Beltre did it at Tampa Bay on May 26, 2010. Boston had gone more than four years longer than any other team without having a player do it; the longest drought (August 2014) passes to the Giants. Benintendi also got hit by a pitch on Saturday, the first Bostonian with the "HR, 3B, HBP" line (never mind the single) since Donnie Sadler against the Rangers on August 9, 1998.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Kenta Maeda, Wednesday: First Dodgers pitcher not named Clayton Kershaw to strike out 12 while allowing ≤ 2 hits and 0 runs since Chan Ho Park against the Padres on September 29, 2000.

⚾ Juan Soto, Saturday: Youngest player in Nats/Expos history to have multiple extra-base hits in a road game. Youngest to do it for "Washington" since Harmon Killebrew at Kansas City, July 16, 1955.

⚾ Brandon Nimmo, Thursday: Fourth Mets batter ever to have three extra-base hits in Milwaukee (including the Braves years). The others are Michael Conforto (May 14, 2017), David Wright (2004), and Mike Piazza (2001).

⚾ Greg Allen, Sunday: By inning, latest walkoff homer (B14/0) for Indians since Brian Giles vs Texas, May 15, 1998.

⚾ Matt Adams, Wednesday: First player in Nationals history with 3 hits and a homer in an x-to-1 loss (i.e., his homer was the team's only run). Last for Expos: Vlad Guerrero at Dodgers, August 21, 2003.

⚾ Mike Trout, Saturday: Third player in Angels history with 5 hits, 4 extra-base hits, and 4 RBI in a game. Kendrys Morales vs Oakland, August 28, 2009; and Dave Winfield at Minnesota, April 13, 1991.

⚾ Tommy Pham, Monday: First Cardinals leadoff batter to strike out four times in a win (so it didn't matter, right?) since Royce Clayton, August 2, 1997, at Philadelphia.

⚾ Travis Shaw, Friday: Second player in Brewers/Pilots history to have three hits and a walkoff non-hit later in the same game. Marquis Grissom reached on an error against the Cubs on September 19, 2000.

⚾ Garrett Richards, Sunday: Fourth pitcher in Angels history to issue five walks and three wild pitches in a game. Previous: Nolan Ryan at Seattle, April 18, 1978.

⚾ Tim Anderson, Saturday: Sixth player in live-ball era to have two homers and make three errors. Last was then-Giant Bob Brenly vs Atlanta, September 14, 1986.

⚾ Josh Harrison, Wednesday: By inning, latest go-ahead triple for Pirates in a road game since Johnny Ray off then-Cardinal Jim Kaat, August 2, 1982.

⚾ Jose Altuve, Saturday: First player for any team with four hits, a homer, a triple, and two stolen bases since the only other Astro to do it-- Steve Finley against the Dodgers on October 2, 1992.

⚾ Ozzie Albies, Tuesday: First Braves leadoff batter to score 3+ runs, and every run for the team in a game, since Ray Powell at Wrigley Field, September 25, 1921.

⚾ Jose Altuve, Sat/Sun: First player in Astros history to have 4 hits in consecutive games and have the team lose both.


Did You Know?

There's a fairly famous picture of Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett together. We run into it all the time at nearby McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I., the home of the famous 33-inning game from 1981. The iconic image is of Barrett stepping on the plate with the winning run. Boggs was on deck (for the 14th time).