Around The World

Sometimes we make a cheesy pun on Twitter early in the week and the whole week just falls right in line from there.

So with the help of some dudes you probably forgot learning about years ago, let's take a journey through the week in baseball weirdness.


Fountain Of Youth

As seen above, Daniel Poncedeleon of the Cardinals is the one who started this whole thing with his maiden voyage on Monday night. We usually have an eye on MLB debuts anyway, since they're always good for a note or two, and of course we also have an eye on those pesky no-hitters. But most of the time those two eyes aren't stuck to the same game.

Poncedeleon retired eight of the first nine Reds batters, the exception being a walk to Tucker Barnhart, and okay, we get it, you haven't seen this guy before, give it one time around the order. Joey Votto drew a walk in the 4th because that's what Joey Votto does. But despite a lot more foul balls, Poncedeleon really did sail through yet another time around the Reds order, taking a no-hitter into the 6th and then the 7th and causing Bumpus Jones to stir in his grave after 125 years. Bumpus, as you may know, is the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter in his major-league debut, and he was a 22-year-old semipro player just signed by Charlie Comiskey for the final game of the season.

Monday's game was the third time this season that a pitcher's MLB debut had gotten through five innings as a no-hitter and made us wake up poor Bumpus. Freddy Peralta took one into the 6th for the Brewers on May 13, and Nick Kingham got through 6⅔ for the Pirates on April 29.

But ultimately, the fact that Poncedeleon had already thrown 116 pitches, and it was still just a 1-0 game, won out when Harrison Bader pinch-hit for him to lead off the 8th. So at least Bumpus can roll back over. And sure enough, another pinch-hitter, Philip Ervin, singles off Jordan Hicks with one out in the 8th to finally allow us to stand down. But remember, Poncedeleon didn't give up the first hit. His line, in his major-league debut, is 7 IP, 0 runs, and 0 hits. And of course Bumpus is the only other player in history to pull that off. Ross Stripling of the Dodgers threw 7⅓ hitless in his debut two years ago, but he gave up a run when the last batter he faced, Angel Pagán, walked and then Trevor Brown promptly broke up the combined no-hitter with a home run. Poncedeleon was the first Cardinals starter to get lifted with a no-hitter intact in even the 4th inning since John Tudor coming off a DL stint on May 1, 1988.

And in case Monday's game didn't have enough drama, it was still 1-0 when Eugenio Suarez got the Reds' second hit with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. It was a homer, the first one Cincinnati had hit when trailing by 1 and down to its final out since Devin Mesoraco walked off against Atlanta on May 7, 2013. Jesse Winker promptly got their third hit. Tucker Barnhart their fourth. And Dilson Herrera their fifth-- which scored Winker for an improbable 2-1 walkoff victory. After getting no-hit through seven innings. We could not do this for every team, but the amazing Baseball Reference Play Index has every Reds home game back to the 1931 season, and in that population, there is no other game where Cincinnati got no-hit even through six innings and then walked off with a victory. Never leave early.


Vasco da Gomber

Vasco da Gama is celebrated in Portugal for being the first to navigate a trade route to India around the Cape of Good Hope. Austin Gomber got some good hope from his teammate Daniel Poncedeleon before his first major-league start on Tuesday. If only he had been pitching against the Indians. (We know they're different Indians. Don't @ us.)

Instead Gomber was on the other side of Ohio for the middle game of the Cardinals' series in Cincinnati, and stop us if you've heard this about two paragraphs ago, but he didn't give up a hit the first time through the order either. After Curt Casali walked and then got caught stealing to end the third, here's nine more straight outs. Wait, didn't we just do this yesterday? Someone sound the alarm again.

Well, someone did. As Gomber was warming up for the 7th, no-hitter still going, the fire alarms at GABP activated and the game was stopped for nearly 8 minutes while stadium personnel tried to figure out what was going on and shut them off. Two batters later, Joey Votto deposits a single to right to deny Gomber a no-hitter in his first major-league start. Gomber had made 15 relief appearances earlier in the season, which would have put him in the company of Bobo Holloman of the 1953 Browns, who made four relief appearances before no-hitting the Athletics on May 6. Bobo lasted until July before being sold to the triple-A team in Toronto for $7500 and never saw the majors again. Along with Bumpus Jones, they're still the only two to throw a no-hitter in their first start. (Also, we've always thought "Bumpus and Bobo" would be a good name for a 1950s "Hee-Haw"-type variety show.)

Gomber, alas, couldn't even get the shutout because the next batter was our buddy Eugenio Suarez. Wham, two-run homer to score Votto and tie the game. In our same population of Reds games back to 1931, Suarez is the first player to hit a game-tying (not go-ahead) homer in the 7th inning in consecutive games. Johnny Bench (September 1 and 3, 1968) is the only one to do it two games apart.

And while the Cards would go on to win Tuesday's game on an 11th-inning homer by Dexter Fowler, Suarez wasn't done homering either. He went deep in Wednesday's finale, as well as the first two games of the Reds' series with the Phillies over the weekend. (More on that later.) That gave him the eighth streak in Reds history of homering in five straight games, and the first in exactly two years. Jay Bruce also did it from July 23 to 27 of 2016. Suarez drew an 0-for-4 on Saturday, meaning no Cincinnati player has still ever gone deep in six straight.


A Pirate's Life For Me

As previously reported, Daniel Poncedeleon's 7 innings bumped Nick Kingham's debut from the ranks of longest no-hit debut this season. Kingham's start on Thursday against the Mets was, well, not as good. He gave up seven hits and walked four, finally surrendering after Asdrubal Cabrera's final home run as a Met (for now) in the 4th inning. The last Pirates starter to allow 11 baserunners and six runs while getting nine outs or fewer... was Nick Kingham, in one of those high-scoring Dodgers festivals back on July 2. Paul Maholm in 2010 was the last Pirate to do it twice in a season, and Kingham is the first one in the live-ball era to allow multiple homers in both games. Cabrera, for his part, ended his final Mets game with two more doubles, just the second Mets batter with 3 XBH and 4 RBI in a game in Pittsburgh. Mike Piazza did that on April 14, 2000. And just the combination of a homer and two doubles was also only the second time a Mets batter has done that in Pittsburgh; Kevin McReynolds had the other such game on April 22, 1987.

Tyler Glasnow came on in relief and threw three hitless innings-- but still gave up a run thanks to two errors by the infield. The last Pirates reliever with that line of 3+ IP, 0 hits, but 1+ run, was Matt Ruebel on June 4, 1997. Ruebel walked the bases full of Cardinals before being removed, and then the reliever after him gave up a double to score two inherited runs.

Friday's game looked very similar at first when Michael Conforto hit a three-run homer in the 1st inning. But this time Pittsburgh chipped back. Or at least David Freese did. His two-run homer in the 2nd cut the lead to 1. After two walks and an infield single in the 5th, Freese comes up again with the bases loaded and gives the Pirates a 4-3 lead. The Mets tie it in the next inning on two more Pittsburgh errors (did we mention it looks similar?), but in the 9th Josh Harrison and Gregory Polanco lead off with singles. The Mets for some reason intentionally walk Elias Diaz... to get to Freese. Haven't you learned anything? Walkoff single that theoretically could have scored two more, but only one counts. That gives Freese 5 RBI accounting for all of Pittsburgh's runs in the game, the first to do that since Pedro Alvarez in a 5-3 win in Cincinnati on June 20, 2013. And Freese is the first Pirate whose fifth (or more) RBI of the game was a walkoff anything since Kevin Young drew a bases-loaded walk against Montréal on July 21, 1995.


Hernando de Juan Soto

Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto may have landed much closer to Tropicana Field than to Marlins Park, but the Nationals' Juan Soto did his own exploration of Florida on Friday night. After hitting his 13th homer of the season in his first at-bat, Soto tacked on a two-run triple-- the first of his major-league career-- as part of a 5-run Nationals 8th.

If that looks familiar, it's because Trea Turner had a homer and a triple at Marlins Park barely 24 hours earlier in Thursday's 10-3 win. It's the first time in Nats/Expos history that they've had a player homer and triple in back-to-back games, although there have been two occasions where teammates did it in the same game. Those were Wilson Ramos and Danny Espinosa against the Orioles on May 20, 2011; and Rusty Staub and John Bateman against the Mets on September 7, 1971. Turner was just one of eight Nationals who had at least one extra-base hit in that game, only the second time ever that eight "Washington" batters have done that on the road. The other was when the Senators went to Comiskey Park on June 14, 1935; two of them that day were pitchers.

And back to Soto on Friday, he threw in a 7th-inning single for good measure, meaning he missed the cycle by the double. We're kinda convinced we need a whiteboard where we update Soto's age each morning. Because yet again the 19-year-old is setting records. By 12 days, he became the youngest player in the live-ball era to homer, triple, and single in the same game; Soto barely topped the performance of another Washingtonian-- Buddy Lewis at Boston on May 24, 1936.

In that same game Friday, Max Scherzer-- on his 34th birthday since we're having fun with ages here-- was all over the boxscore. Not only did he strike out 11 Marlins, which doesn't shock anyone, but on offense he collected a base hit, a sacrifice bunt, got hit by a pitch (that hurts once you turn 34, trust us!), and grounded into a double play. Since GIDP were first recorded by the National League in 1933, no pitcher has ever done all of that in the same game. Schezer is the first pitcher with an 11-K game on his birthday (any age) since Chris Carpenter celebrated the big 3-0 by not going to a 3-0 count on any batter (and striking out 12 of them) on April 27, 2005.

But while pitching, Max also plunked Miami batter Brian Anderson, making him the first Nationals pitcher to hit a batter and also get hit as a batter since Collin Balester did it in Cincinnati on July 6, 2008.

Now the present-day Soto just needs some games in St Louis and Minneapolis to match his namesake's voyage up the Mississippi River. He's already got the "fountain of youth" part.


Lindor-a the Explorer

We literally thought of this one on the way home from a local minor-league game on Friday, and wouldn't you know it, the first boxscore we opened up was Francisco Lindor's multi-homer game against the Tigers. It was his fifth time this season going yard twice, tying the Indians' team record for a leadoff hitter. Grady Sizemore also had five in 2008. If you throw in his 3 RBIs, Lindor set a new team mark for that on Friday; Sizemore as leadoff batter only did that three times a decade ago. The only other Clevelander in team history with a pair of 2-HR, 3-RBI games from the leadoff spot was Tony Bernazard in 1986.

Brandon Guyer put the finishing touches on Friday's game with a 3-run, pinch-hit homer in the 8th. That was the first pinch-hit homer for Cleveland this season; since AL teams, predictably, use less of them, all six remaining teams that don't have one are from the "junior circuit". The last Indians hitter with a 3- or 4-run pinch-hit homer in Detroit was Fred Whitfield back on June 29, 1967.

Unfortunately, the 8-3 win and all those homers meant Cleveland didn't have a need to try and steal any bases. So at least in this episode there was, well, no swiping.


Intermission
We couldn't decide between the "Dora" theme or "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?". Do not click on either. The earworm is permanent.


Long Day's Journey Into Night

Five centuries ago, it took months to sail across the Atlantic Ocean if you didn't die from scurvy or those pesky pirates we mentioned above. Nowadays you can fly from one side to the other in almost the amount of time it took the Dodgers and Phillies to play Tuesday night's game. With the score 4-2 in the bottom of the 7th, Jorge Alfaro said, not going anywhere for a while? and cranked a two-run game-tying homer. And then we wait. The Phillies waste a leadoff double in the 9th. The Dodgers get a free double in the 11th when a fan (there were some still there!) reaches over and interferes with a ball in play. The Phillies have runners in the 13th, 14th, and 15th and can't score any of them. Finally it takes the magic of "position player pitching" to end this mess. Dodgers right fielder Enrique Hernandez gets Nick Williams to hit his first pitch for an out, but then throws eight straight balls (not including the required 3-0 "mercy strike") and is faced with former New Britain Rock Cat Trevor Plouffe with two on.

Plouffe promptly cements Hernandez's place in history as the first position player ever to give up a walkoff homer to lose a game. By inning, Plouffe hit the latest walkoff anything for the Phils since a 19th-inning sac fly by Raul Ibañez on May 25, 2011. And only two other Phillies in team history have hit a walkoff homer that late in a game; they were Wes Covington against the Pirates on September 23, 1961 (also 1 out in the 16th), and Del Ennis in the 17th against the Braves on September 6, 1952.

When he wasn't homering, Alfaro managed to strike out four times; he and Cesar Hernandez became the first set of Phillies teammates with a 4-K game since Pat Burrell and Jim Thome did it against Baltimore on July 2, 2004. And in these marathon games, we always say there's one player left out. Well, this time there were two; in addition to giving up the walkoff homer, Enrique Hernandez went a whopping 0-for-7 at the plate. As did Max Muncy, making them the first Dodgers to pull that off in the same game since Mike Piazza and Eric Karros in a 7-6 loss to Florida, August 1, 1996.

Every time a game goes really long, you start hearing about the turnaround time to the teams' next game. And sure enough, after Plouffe's walkoff at 1:14 am, the Dodgers and Phillies had to play a "getaway" game just 11½ hours later. You sort of expect all the players to be in "walking dead" mode at that point and the game to be like 2-1 with eight hits. But it turns out that the last three times the Phillies have played a 16-inning night game, dating to 2011, they've had a day game immediately following. And not only have they won all three of those day games, they've scored at least 7 runs in each-- including Wednesday's 7-3 victory over the Dodgers. Although we'll allow Max Muncy to hit the snooze button; after noting that he went 0-for-7 on Wednesday, he promptly came back and homered in the loss on Thursday afternoon. No Dodgers hitter had done that since Shawn Green in Pittsburgh on July 14-15, 2001.


Gellin' Like Magellan

"Enrique" brings us a perfect segue, because in researching this post (no, really, we do), we happened upon this article from The History Channel suggesting that Ferdinand Magellan is technically not the first person to circle the earth, since he died halfway across the Pacific. They speculate that a Malaysian guide (okay, slave) named Enrique who survived the voyage might actually deserve the credit. You can write your own dissertation on that. We'll write one on the barrage of hitters who circumnavigated the bases this week.

The Phillies decided to send three ships a-sailing on Thursday, although in Cincinnati they're more likely riverboat casinos. Either way, Rhys Hoskins hit the bonus with a 1st-inning homer, and then Nick Williams led off the 3rd with one. In the 5th it was Maikel Franco's turn. Hoskins went back to his lucky table in the 6th, albeit with a different dealer since Michael Lorenzen had been knocked out of the game by then. Didn't matter. 6-4. Franco spins again in the 7th. 7-4. And to top it all off, who's up with two outs in the 9th but Nick Williams again. Jackpot. A 9-4 Phillies win, but with three different players hitting multiple home runs. That hadn't happened anywhere in the majors since David Ortiz, Bill Mueller, and Jason Varitek did it at Yankee Stadium on (of course) July 4, 2003. But it had only happened once before in all of Phillies history. Those first three pioneers were Kevin Sefcik, Bobby Estalella, and Rico Brogna against the latter's former team, the Mets, on September 8, 1998.

We didn't even mention Tucker Barnhart or Carlos Santana homering in the same game, plus the oddity that was Eugenio Suarez going deep against Ranger Suarez, the first Suarez-off-Suarez dinger in MLB history. That was part of Eugenio's five-game homer streak discussed earlier, and after his late-inning heroics against the Cardinals, he promptly hit multi-run homers in the 1st inning on both Wednesday and Thursday. No Reds batter had done that in consecutive games since Adam Dunn against the Brewers on May 6 and 7, 2002.

Ranger, meanwhile, was making his major-league debut (a good name for an outdoorsy, explorer-type, we think), and despite those two early homers, he settled in and threw the required five innings in 75 pitches. That made him the first pitcher in Phillies history to give up multiple homers in his MLB debut and still get the victory. The only other pitcher to do it this year was Pablo Lopez of the Marlins.


Rocks My Sox

Most explorers, at least those with boats, want to avoid crashing on a bunch of rocks. If you're a baseball team visiting Anaheim, however, you do want to crash the rocks-- specifically the pile of them beyond the center field fence. The White Sox did plenty of that on Thursday as well, dropping six homers on the Angels, including five off starter Nick Tropeano. Jose Abreu and Daniel Palka each went deep twice, already the third set of Sox teammates to do it this season; Palka teamed with Avisail Garcia on July 3 down at those pesky riverboats in Cincinnati, and Matt Davidson and Tim Anderson of course each went deep twice on Opening Day. The three games with multiple players doing it is the most in a season in White Sox history.

Tropeano ended up being just the second pitcher in Angels history to give up five homers in a game, joining Willie Fraser against the Yankees on August 16, 1988. And the kicker? Both of them won! Starting with Kole Calhoun's leadoff homer, the Angels unleashed 16 hits of their own (though only three homers) and won the slugfest 12-8. Tropeano actually made it into the 7th inning. The Angels and Dodgers are the only teams in MLB history to have multiple pitchers allow five homers and win; the last for any team had been Mat Latos, then of Cincinnati, on May 27, 2012. It was just the second time the White Sox had ever hit six homers in a loss, the other being June 25, 2016, against Toronto (lost 10-8). And Abreu and Palka are only the third teammates in Sox history to hit multiple homers in a loss. Robin Ventura and the Detroit Tigers are in both of the other pairs, once with Frank Thomas on August 21, 1991, and again with Julio Franco on Arpil 24, 1994.

And here's a good spot to mention Francisco Arcia, who may or may not (we're guessing not) be named after Francisco Coronado, the Mexican explorer of the American southwest. Although Coronado didn't quite make it to Anaheim (or Salt Lake City for that matter), Arcia did. And he contributed a homer and four RBIs to that 12-8 barrage on Thursday... in his major-league debut. He's the first player in Angels history with a 4-RBI debut, and the first for any team since the Yankees' Miguel Andujar last June. The last to also homer was Pittsburgh's Josh Bell in July 2016.

Arcia didn't play in Friday's opener with Seattle, which was decided on Calhoun's 10th-inning walkoff homer. Having started Thursday's game in similar fashion, Calhoun became the first player in Angels history to hit a leadoff homer and a walkoff homer in consecutive games, in either order (though shoutout to Darin Erstad who hit both in the same game in 2000). But Arcia returned to the lineup on Saturday and proceeded to mash another three-run homer, plus two doubles, singlehandedly providing the 6-run margin in the Angels' 11-5 victory. Since RBI became an official stat in 1920, only one other player has recorded four of them in each of his first two career games. That's the Cardinals' Joe Cunningham, who also homered in both contests-- June 30, 1954, against the Reds, and July 1 against the Braves. Arcia didn't play in the series finale on Sunday, so at this writing his streak is alive. No one's ever done it in each of his first three games.


Spanning the Globe Life

Admittedly we don't have the constant variety of sport, but we do have constant variety within one.

Last week we brought the heat, specifically tales of triple-digit temperatures at Globe Life Park in Arlington. The Oakland Athletics got the joy of heading there at the start of the week, and in frigid 99-degree conditions on Monday, proceeded to explode for 15 runs on 18 hits, including six doubles and four homers. It was their first game this season with 10 XBH, their first time ever doing it in Texas (and yes, we include Houston here), and only the second time since their departure from Philadelphia in 1954 that seven different players in the same game had multiple hits with at least one of them for extra bases. On May 3, 2000, in Kansas City, Miguel Tejada and (!) Terrence Long led a 20-hit attack as Oakland won that contest 14-5.

Jonathan Lucroy, Stephen Piscotty, and Khris Davis each collected a homer, a double, and two runs scored; no three teammates in Athletics history (1901) had ever done that in the same game. And while Matt Chapman didn't have the double, he did drive in four runs thanks to a three-run homer in Oakland's 6-run 7th. Only one other quartet in team history has posted a line of 2+ runs, 2+ hits, 2+ RBI, and a homer in the same game: Billy McMillon, Jose Guillen, Miguel Tejada, and Ramon Hernandez in Toronto on August 24, 2003.

Tuesday continued the slugfest as Oakland trailed 10-2 after a 6-run 6th by Texas, but somehow mounted an improbable comeback to score eight unanswered runs and send the game to extras as a 10-10 tie. Piscotty's leadoff homer in the 9th was the last of those eight runs; it was his fourth tying or go-ahead homer this season in the 9th or later. The last Oaklander to do that was Matt Stairs, who hit five of them in the 1999 campaign.

Khris Davis then completed the awesomeness with a three-run homer in the top of the 10th for a final of 13-10. The Athletics hadn't trailed by 8 or more so late in a game and come back to win since August 30, 1939, at St Louis. They hadn't scored 13 runs or more in back-to-back games since June of 2000, doing so on the 18th at Kansas City and the 19th against Baltimore. And Oakland's last win by the exact score of 13-10... well, they weren't Oakland then. They weren't even Kansas City. It was June 12, 1949, when the Philadelphia A's beat those same St Louis Browns.

Khris Davis would continue Oakland's amazing trip to the Metroplex with two more homers in Wednesday's game. After hitting the go-ahead three-run shot in the 10th on Tuesday, Davis gave the A's hope in the 7th with another three-run homer that cut a 5-1 deficit to 5-4. After the bullpen held Texas scoreless in the 7th and 8th, Davis came up again with two outs in the top of the 9th and Nick Martini on first after a walk. Of course, two-run homer to turn 4-5 into 6-5, which would ultimately be the final when Blake Treinen struck out the side in the bottom half. Davis thus managed to hit a go-ahead home run in the 9th or later in back-to-back games, something only one other player in Oakland history (1968) has done. Mark McGwire homered in the 16th inning of consecutive games on July 3 (at Toronto) and 4 (at Cleveland) in 1988. Davis hit Wednesday's tater on a 2-2 count, the Athletics' first go-ahead homer when they were down to their final strike since... Khris Davis hit a walkoff grand slam against the Rangers on May 17, 2016. He's the first player in Oakland A's history to do it twice (and we don't have enough pitch counts to go back any further).

And in Thursday's finale of the four-game set, Oakland completed the sweep-- its first in Texas since July 2005-- by collecting four (count 'em!) triples. In 50 years in Oakland, the A's had never done that in a game; their last contest with four three-baggers was their 12th-to-last game in Kansas City, on August 29, 1967, against the Indians. Matt Chapman had two of those three-baggers to become the first Oaklander to do that since Rajai Davis in Detroit on September 9, 2008. The A's had gone the longest of any team without someone having a multi-triple game, an "honor" which now passes to the Braves (Jeff Francoeur in 2009).

Chapman also homered to give the A's a short-lived lead in the 2nd, making him the first Oakland with two triples and a homer since Adam Piatt did it at the Metrodome on April 30, 2000. And thanks to Jurickson Profar of the Rangers also legging out a three-bagger in the losing cause, it was the first game in the history of That Stadium In Arlington (whatever it's called now) where five triples were hit.


Second Voyage

The explorers of old used to set sail without any idea when (or if) they would ever come home. So too do batters set out for first base, then maybe for second, and suddenly they're halfway around the world with no idea if they'll ever come home. That must be even rougher for a pitcher, who's used to being 60 feet away from home, not 127. So this week's salute to doubles is all about #PitchersWhoRake.

Wei-Yin Chen connected for his first career extra-base hit in a highly-unusual Tuesday afternoon game in Miami. That wasn't too unusual, Dan Straily had one for the Marlins a month ago. Zack Wheeler hit one for the Mets later in the evening, but he's got four of them, he's done that before. (And he'll do it again, hold that thought.) But then Junior Guerra comes along and hits two of them in the Brewers' walkoff win over Washington. (He did not, alas, hit the walkoff, although we'll always have The Yovani Gallardo As Pinch Hitter Game.) Only two other Brewers pitchers have ever had multiple doubles in a game: Manny Parra against the Mets on September 2, 2008, and Steve Woodard against the Pirates on May 27, 1998. The four combined set a season high, and although we didn't get there by day's end, it forced us to look up that the last day with five pitcher doubles was way back on September 20, 2003.

Zack Greinke dropped his fourth double of the year in Friday's 6-2 win in San Diego. That's the most by any Diamondbacks pitcher since... Zack Greinke had four last year. He's got nine total with Arizona, tied with Micah Owings (who of course famously had a two-homer game as well) and trailing only Randy Johnson (13) and Dan Haren (18) in team history. But Greinke also hit 16 of the things for other teams, including 11 with the Dodgers. His career total of 25 is the second-most among active pitchers, behind Adam Wainwright's 34. (Yovani Gallardo is third with 21, including that famous walkoff.)

And back to the Mets, Jacob deGrom has apparently decided that since he can't catch a break while pitching, he might as well try hitting instead. On Saturday he connected for a single and a double, which unfortunately was one-third of the Mets' entire hit total. No other "hitter" had more than one and they lost to Pittsburgh 5-0, which is actually their largest shutout loss in the Steel City since August 18, 1985. DeGrom was the first instance of a Mets pitcher having the team's only XBH of a game since Johan Santana hit his only career home run against the Reds on July 6, 2010.

So of course Zack Wheeler duplicates the feat on Sunday. This time it was with Luis Guillorme, recently called up due to the departure of Asdrubal Cabrera, on first base. That meant Wheeler not only had a double, he had an RBI too. He's the first Mets pitcher with any extra-base hit in consecutive starts since Jon Niese did it at the end of 2013. With deGrom, they're the first Mets pitchers with an XBH in consecutive games since Bartolo Colón and Noah Syndegaard each doubled in August 2016.

But that RBI scoring Guillorme? It was the only run of the game. The Mets won 1-0, their first 1-0 win since beating Atlanta on June 25, 2016. The only team to go longer without one is the Blue Jays. And it's the sixth time in Mets history that they've won a 1-0 game with the RBI coming from a pitcher. But the previous such game was way back on September 14, 1977. Nino Espinosa singled home another Luis-- Rosado, also in the 5th inning, at Philadelphia. Of those six games, Wheeler's is the first where the RBI came from an extra-base hit.

Gregory Polanco, while not a pitcher, also hung out at second base a lot on those games with the Mets this weekend. On Saturday he had two doubles, plus two runs scored, and stole a base, the first Pirate with that line since Nate McLouth in Chicago on June 19, 2008. On Sunday he added three singles and stole second base twice, though obviously didn't score a run. Three hits and two steals but zero runs hadn't been done by a Pirate since Rob Mackowiak in Houston on May 4, 2005. But back-to-back games with three hits and at least one steal? Pittsburgh's last to swing that was Tony Womack on July 21 and 22, 1998.

And one more throw-in "doubles" note: The Tigers staged a three-run comeback in Kansas City on Monday when Victor Martinez, Jim Adduci, and James McCann hit three straight two-baggers to hand closer Brandon Maurer a 5-4 loss. It's the first time the Tigers have hit back-to-back-to-back doubles in the 9th inning or later since Jimmy Bloodworth, Dixie Parsons, and Dizzy Trout did it at Comiskey Park on May 9, 1943. (Asterisk: There are about 20% of games from 1943 to 1952 where play-by-play is missing and unsearchable.)



Lewis & Clark & Addison
Sidebar: Why does Lewis always get first billing? Somewhere William Clark is still bitter about that. Although we really did have to look up his first name.

The Cubs entered the 9th inning of Thursday's game with a 6-4 deficit and facing Brad Boxberger of 24 saves this season. Never leave early. Ben Zobrist drew a leadoff walk, and after Javier Baez lined out to center, it was left to rookie David Bote, whose current claim to fame is drawing a game-ending walk against the Reds back on July 8. Well, now he's got a better one. Game-tying two-run homer off Boxberger, and before the Wrigley faithful are done celebrating that, Anthony Rizzo takes the second pitch onto Sheffield Avenue for a 7-6 walkoff.

Rizzo's blast was the Cubs' first-ever walkoff homer against the Diamondbacks, the only remaining NL opponent (including Houston and Milwaukee) against whom they'd never hit one. And the last time the Cubs hit back-to-back homers to tie a game and then walk off was April 16, 2004, when Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou did it against the Reds.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Joey Rickard, Saturday: First Oriole with 3 hits, 3 runs scored, and 5 RBI since... Joey Rickard on May 13 against the Rays. Only other Orioles to do it twice in a season are Albert Belle and Brady Anderson.

⚾ Braves, Monday: First time since at least 1905 (when we run out of easily-accessible linescores) that they scored 12+ runs in a game without scoring 3 in any inning.

⚾ Rougned Odor, Saturday: First player with five hits including an inside-the-park homer since the Padres' Gene Richards at Shea Stadium, July 10, 1982.

⚾ Orioles, Fri-Sun: Fourth streak in franchise history of scoring 11+ runs in three consecutive games. Last was in June 2016. But first time they've done it with all three games against the same opponent.

⚾ Luis Severino, Monday: First Yankee pitcher to give up 11 hits and 7 runs, but still strike out at least 8, since Ron Guidry against the White Sox, July 29, 1983.

⚾ Masahiro Tanaka, Tuesday: Threw 3-hit shutout at Tropicana Field, first since "El Duque" (Orlando Hernandez) on June 22, 1999. With Luis Severino at Houston May 2, first time two different Yankees have done it on the road in same season since Stan Williams and Whitey Ford in 1963.

⚾ Marcell Ozuna, Saturday: First Cardinal to hit a 1st-inning grand slam since... Marcell Ozuna on June 3 against the Pirates. First player in Cardinals history (1882) to hit two in same season.

⚾ Victor Caratini, Tuesday: Became first Cubs batter to play first base, third base, catch, and pitch at any point in same season since Michael "King" Kelly in 1884.

⚾ Tyson Ross and Patrick Corbin, Saturday: Second game in live-ball era where both starting pitchers had two hits and an RBI. The other pair was Tom Glavine and Denny Neagle on July 20, 1994. #PitchersWhoRake

⚾ Mike Zunino, Sunday: First Mariners number-9 hitter to have a multi-run hit in the 1st inning (they scored 7) since Ben Davis against Texas on April 12, 2003.

⚾ Astros, Wednesday: Second time in team history where they had 1 hit but still scored 2 runs. Other was September 3, 2006, against the Mets... and they won (because nine walks kinda helps).

⚾ Chris Devenski, Friday: First pitcher in Astros history to have back-to-back outings where he faced four or more batters and got none of them out. Last in majors was Arizona's Joe Patterson in April 2012.

⚾ Lourdes Gurriel, through Sunday: Currently riding 11-game streak of having multiple hits in every game. Longest streak in the majors since the Reds' Tony Perez from August 8 through 20, 1973.


Did You Know?
Most of us grew up with the story that Ponce de Leon went to Florida searching for the "fountain of youth". We imagine that's why so many older people go there now. (Or the weather. Probably the weather.) But if you were off fighting the "Is Pluto still a planet?" battle, turns out the fountain theory has been debunked as well. Like so many other folks in the past 500 years, he really just wanted money.