Every year we briefly consider skipping this week because there's four days off, and only about 45 games to choose from instead of the usual selection of about 100, and maybe there won't really be enough to look up and/or post about. And every year we're wrong. Teams manage to cram seven days' worth of fun and oddities into a three-day weekend's worth of games. So here we are.
Carpenter Hammers
Through the power of Big TV Network™ demanding a Thursday night game to replace the now-abolished Sunday night game heading into the break, combined with the power of Wrigleyville business associations to prohibit Friday night games, we had a scheduling quirk where the first two MLB contests out of the All-Star break were both at Wrigley Field. So before any other team had even seen a pitch this week, the Cubs and Cardinals had compiled 38 runs, 56 hits, and just another 18-5 game the likes of which have been so popular the last couple weeks.
Friday's outburst began early with Matt Carpenter taking Jon Lester for a leadoff homer. Tack on two more Cardinals runs in the 2nd and here's Carpenter again. Bang, 5-0. Lester would allow the first three batters of the 4th to reach before finally getting pulled. After which Anthony Bass promptly gave up back-to-back bases-loaded walks. By the time that's done it's 12-1 and bring on the position players. Victor Caratini became the first Cub in (at least) the live-ball era to play first base and pitch in the same game; Tommy La Stella joined Gary Gaetti in 1999 as the only ones to play third base and pitch, and even right fielder Ian Happ tossed a scoreless 9th. All told it ended up as the first 18-5 game in the majors in nearly eight years, and the previous one was also at Wrigley. The Mets won by that score on September 5, 2010.
It was the first time in (again, at least) the live-ball era that multiple Cubs position players had pitched in the same game, and the only other team to use three was a game that's come up a lot lately. Sal Bando, Jim Gantner, and Buck Martinez all pitched for the Brewers in an 18-8 festival in Kansas City on May 28, 1979. Lester became the first Cubs starter in 12 years to allow a dozen baserunners, eight earned runs, and not get out of the 4th inning. Angel Guzman did that in Pittsburgh on August 28, 2006.
But perhaps we have buried the lead. Or the leadoff, as the case may be. Carpenter continued hammering even after the two homers against Lester. With a double, he was one of those batters who knocked Lester out at the start of the 4th. Two pitchers later, after St Louis batted around in the inning, he finished the scoring with yet another double off James Norwood. And then he tagged Former New Britain Rock Cat Brian Duensing with a three-run homer in the 6th. Count 'em, five extra-base hits before the Cardinals pulled all their starters with a 15-1 lead. No Cards batter in the live-ball era has had 5 XBH in a game, and the only other one to collect 16 total bases was Mark Whiten in his famous four-homer game in 1993.
The last three-homer game by any Cardinal (forget the rest for now) was also at Wrigley Field, by Albert Pujols on May 30, 2010. The team had never had a leadoff hitter go deep three times, and the only one with a 7-RBI game had been Augie Bergamo at the Polo Grounds on July 4, 1945. Bergamo and Carpenter are two of just five Cardinals ever to have five hits and drive in seven; the others are all in the Hall of Fame. Enos Slaughter did it on August 11, 1946; before Bergamo came Chick Hafey in 1931 and Jim Bottomley in 1924. And the last leadoff batter for any team to have both 3 HR and 7 RBI was Seattle's Mickey Brantley against Cleveland (the team for which his son now plays) on September 14, 1987.
And if it feels like Carpenter has done this before, it's because he has. On June 26 against Cleveland he had another five-hit game that included a pair of homers. Although multiple five-hit games has happened a few times, five hits with multiple home runs hasn't. Carpenter is the first player in franchise history (to 1882) to do it twice in a season.
By the way, in that lone Thursday game, Anthony Rizzo hit a leadoff double as the first Cubs batter after the break. As always, we curiously went looking for the last Cub to do that. And it was Ben Zobrist last year. The prior team to have its first batter out of the All-Star break hit a leadoff double was the Royals of 2009 (David DeJesus) and 2010 (Scott Podsednik).
Wrigley's Doublemint
The two rivals then played a doubleheader on Saturday to make up for an April rainout (originally we thought the Thursday game was the makeup, but our mistake). The day game was an easy 7-2 win for the Cubs; while the Cardinals managed just two hits, one of those was a home run by Matt Carpenter again. Going back to before the break, it was his fifth straight contest with a dinger, tying the Cardinals' record. The most recent among the others to homer in five straight was Ryan Ludwick in August 2008. And the last time the Cardinals had 18+ hits in one game and no more than two in the next was in May 1991; the last time it happened against the same opponent was at Candlestick Park on May 17 and 18, 1975.
The Cardinals got that other run thanks largely to six walks issued by Tyler Chatwood, who also had a game on April 17-- also against the Cardinals-- where he allowed only one hit but gave out a half-dozen free passes. The only other Cubs pitcher in the live-ball era with two such games is Johnny Klippstein in the 1950s, and the last one to get the win (as Chatwood did) was Steve Trachsel in 1998. And that wasn't just any win. It was Game 163 against the Giants after the two teams landed on an exact tie at 89-73 for the NL Wild Card that season.
Back on Saturday, St Louis staged a late comeback in the night game, getting three runs in the 9th on doubles by Paul DeJong and Tommy Pham to win 6-3. But who gets double-switched into the pitcher's spot in the 6th inning except Matt Carpenter. And who proceeds to homer again in his first plate appearance. That sixth straight game gives him sole possession of the Cardinals record for a single season, though Mark McGwire did homer in the last two games of 1997 and the first four of 1998. He's the first Cardinal to homer in both games of a doubleheader since Jedd Gyorko at Citi Field in 2016 (we were there!), and the first at Wrigley since Jim Edmonds on September 2, 2003.
Despite the loss, Anthony Rizzo had four hits in the night game after hitting a leadoff triple and walking three times in the day game. He became the first Cub to lead off both halves of a doubleheader with base hits since Brian McRae doubled and singled against San Diego on August 10, 1995. And the team's last hitter to reach base four times in both games? That's Ryne Sandberg, also against the Cardinals, on September 19, 1992.
Rizzo would promptly get two hits, a walk, and be plunked by a pitch in Sunday's series finale. Although Kris Bryant had a streak of three games last August where he reached base four times in each, the Cubs' last leadoff hitter to do it was none other than Brian McRae again. That happened in each of a three-game set against Houston from August 16 to 18, 1996.
Globe-al Warming
The Indians and Rangers (well, most of them) got to spend four days in the air conditioning this week, only to venture out again into one of the hottest weeks on record, even for north Texas. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport touched 108° on Thursday and Friday and then 109° on both Saturday and Sunday-- all records for the date-- and the official temperature on Friday night's boxscore from Globe Life Park was listed as 107°. With the asterisk that there are a few games missing in the early 1990s, it was the warmest known first pitch in Arlington since they wrote down 109° against Toronto on August 26, 1988. That, of course, was a 5-1 win, Paul Kilgus took a shutout into the 9th, and they got out of there in 2 hours 40 minutes.
Friday? Nnnnnope. Because of course let's not only rack up 34 total hits and use 15 pitchers, let's have it go extra innings. Starters Trevor Bauer and Martin Perez also got over 100-- pitches, that is, both gave up nine hits, and Perez didn't get out of the 6th. (Bauer didn't even make it to the 6th.) It took exactly 3 hours to hit the 7th-inning stretch, after which Joey Gallo clobbers a two-run homer to take the Cleveland lead down to 7-6. We hit the bottom of the 9th at the 3:52 mark, and all the Rangers need to do is not score exactly two runs. Could be 0, could be 6, just any number but 2 (as we like to say).
Nnnnnope. With two outs no less, Robinson Chirinos and Joey Gallo went yard on back-to-back pitches to make it 8-7 and then 8-8, and then Willie Calhoun struck out to deny us any relief. Only three times in Rangers/Senators history have they hit back-to-back homers to tie the game with two outs in the 9th (obviously the first one can't tie, but could be a multi-run job, then the second one has to be a solo shot down by 1). Rafael Palmeiro and Todd Zeile did it on August 14, 1999, against the White Sox, also on consecutive pitches; and in the expansion Senators' first season, Dale Long and Willie Tasby also hit them against the White Sox (June 9, 1961); while we don't know if they were on back-to-back pitches, the Chicago Tribune does tell us that pitcher Turk Lown "got a public berating along with [c]atcher Sherm Lollar at the mound", some of it likely caught by "the prying eyes of WGN-TV". Gallo, for his part, is the second player in team history with a multi-homer game that included a tying shot with two outs in the 9th. Alfonso Soriano achieved the same feat at Oakland on September 13, 2004, but Texas went on to lose that game in extras as well.
The Rangers loaded the bases again in the 10th but Zach McAllister got a force at home and two strikeouts to send us onward. Finally Jose Ramirez's leadoff double in the 11th would prove to be enough for the Indians' first extra-inning win in Arlington since April 30, 1995 (7-6); Calhoun grounded out again to end the 11th and finally get everyone off the field after an unhealthy 4 hours 48 minutes outside. In the population of known weather data, it was the highest combination of heat and time ever recorded; there have been 4½-hour games as hot as 101°, but nothing approaching 4:48 at 107°. The previous honor probably goes to another Arlington game, against the Angels on August 1, 2012, an 11-10 extra-inning walkoff that took 4:01 and was listed at 105°. (They played another 4-hour game at 102° the following night.) When Friday's game finally ended at 11:56 pm, it was still 92°.
Cool It Now
Saturday's morning low got to a nice chilly 81° at DFW, but unfortunately the baseball game was scheduled for 7 pm again. Which meant another sweltering 107° gametime temperature for Bartolo Colón, 45 years old and listed at 285 pounds, to try and deal with. It, um, wasn't great.
Colón and Carlos Carrasco matched zeroes for the first four innings, but in the 5th, the Indians sent seven batters to the plate against Bartolo and six of them got hits, three of them doubles. The damage might have been worse except that one of those batters, Jose Ramirez, got caught in a rundown between second and third. Bartolo exited the game having allowed eight hits and five runs, but still with a few innings left for the Rangers to try and get back in it. Insert hyphen here.
No, really, insert hyphen here. That's Austin Bibens-Dirkx, the third hyphenated player in major-league history, and let's just say he got punctuated. Yonder Alonso sent his second pitch into the right-field seats to complete the Indians' 6-run inning. Tyler Naquin hit a two-run dinger in the 6th. Adrian Beltre did likewise in the 7th. Now it's 10-2 and no one else wants to go out in the heat, so take one for the team. Bibens-Dirkx would stay out there all the way until the 9th, when five straight hits (and still four more runs) finally coaxed Alex Claudio out of the air conditioning long enough to get the last out of the game. Final damage, 16-3, the first loss by that exact score in Rangers/Senators history, and the first win for Cleveland since beating Kansas City on May 19, 1998.
But wait, if the Indians scored 16 and Bartolo only gave up 5, well that means.... Mm-hmm. Austin's line: 4 IP, 13 hits, eleven runs all earned, zero strikeouts. Only one other reliever in team history had done the 13 hits; that was Steve Comer against the Orioles on August 22, 1982, and it took him seven innings. Only one other pitcher in team history had surrendered 11 runs while striking out zero, and that was in a start! Derek Holland couldn't get out of the 3rd inning against Toronto on May 5, 2016. And the combination of 13 hits and 11 earned runs hadn't been done by any reliever, for any team, since Brooklyn's Tommy Warren entered an 11-7 game at the Polo Grounds on April 30, 1944, and turned it into a 26-8 final after an eight-run 8th. That game still holds the Giants' modern (1900) record for most runs scored, and if you're saying, hey, what about The Vin Mazzaro Game from a few years back?, well, yes, he did give up 14 runs-- but "only" 11 hits (the other three runs reached via walks).
The Indians learned the hard way (they probably knew this already) that you can't bank those runs, although we have pondered that as an interesting idea to "increase offense". In Sunday's finale, played in frigid 102° conditions, they got shut out 5-0 behind a strong outing from Yovani Gallardo. It was the first time Cleveland had scored 16 runs in one game, and 0 in the next, since September 17 and 18, 1979, when they beat the Yankees 16-3 and then lost 2-0.
We totally drew a blank on who had done the song that is also the title of this post. So we'll give you a chance to try and think of it also before clicking. It's not all that old either. Intermission!
Life's Rich Tapia-stry
Meanwhile, in Arizona this weekend, it even got too hot for the local reptiles, as the Diamondbacks-- who are known for leaving the roof open despite temperatures of 100° or more-- decided to close it for their series with Colorado. No worries, it got figuratively torn off again as the teams played Friday's opener to a nice little 11-10 finish with 26 combined hits, another game time over four hours, and the Diamondbacks stranding the tying run at third. Nolan Arenado chipped in a pair of two-run dingers, opening the scoring in the 1st and then tying the game at 5-5 in the 5th. He would end up with three runs scored, three hits, and four runs driven in, the first Rockies hitter to do that away from Coors Field since... Nolan Arenado in Milwaukee on April 6, 2015. Only two other players in team history have had multiple such games on the road, Larry Walker (five) and Vinny Castilla (three).
The big blow, however, would come in the top of the 7th when Archie Bradley was tasked with holding an 8-5 Arizona lead. Bradley faced eight batters (which should right away tell you something). He got two of them out. The other six (three hits, three walks) all scored, four of them on a grand slam by Raimel Tapia that gave Colorado the lead for good at 9-8. That was Tapia's only at-bat of the game; he was summoned as a pinch hitter for reliever Scott Oberg. And thus his tater was just the third go-ahead, pinch-hit grand slam in Rockies history. Not shockingly, the others were both at Coors: Mark Sweeney hit one against the Giants on September 7, 2004; and Jamey Carroll launched one against the Cubs on August 11, 2007. That same week (August 14, 2007) was the last time a D'backs reliever gave up 6+ runs while getting no more than two outs as Bradley did; Joe Kennedy pulled that off against the Marlins.
But let us not overlook the multi-hit games on the losing side of the ledger; leadoff batter David Peralta went 4-for-5 and scored three times, while two spots down, A.J. Pollock recorded five hits and also scored three of Arizona's 10 runs. Only two other Diamondbacks have collected five hits in a loss, and both did it at Petco Park. They were Jean Segura on August 19, 2016, and Justin Upton on September 16, 2009. Together Pollock and Peralta were the first teammates in Diamondbacks history to each have four hits and three runs scored in a loss. The last pair to do it for any team was Boston's Pedro Ciriaco and Dustin Pedroia, in a 14-13 slugfest with the Angels on August 23, 2012.
The Rockies would take a lower-scoring affair from the D'backs on Saturday, winning 6-5 on Tom Murphy's pinch-hit homer in the top of the 8th. Combined with Tapia's slam on Friday, it marked the first time in Rockies history that they had hit pinch-hit, go-ahead homers in any inning of consecutive games. Heck, it's the first time they've even hit two in the same month.
Halo Happenings
Over in Anaheim, where they listed a gametime temperature of 108° for the Freeway Series a couple weeks back, we were treated to the "fun" that is the AL West over the weekend. While the Astros were scooping up runs in the first three innings against Tyler Skaggs on Friday, all Dallas Keuchel was doing was retiring Angels batters. In order. Nine before a walk to David Fletcher. Then 11 more. With two outs in the 7th Justin Upton hits a ball just off the glove of a leaping Marwin Gonzalez at short, it goes as an infield single but both broadcast crews describe it as "questionable". Finally Ian Kinsler shoots one to left to start the 8th inning and official scorer Ed Munson has no worries. The Angels would finish with only those two hits, though Kinsler eventually did score a run on a sacrifice fly. The Angels were also held to two hits by Seattle on the Wednesday before the All-Star break, the first time it's happened twice in a 10-day span since May of 2005. And they hadn't repeated the "feat" at home that quickly since September 19 and 27 of 1986, the earlier game in that pair being Joe Cowley's no-hitter for the White Sox. Only once before in team history had the Angels had just three baserunners (the two hits plus Fletcher's walk), no extra-base hits, but still somehow scored a run; the other game was September 28, 1968, also against the White Sox... and they won.
Although Ian Kinsler's infield single got the no-hitter out of the way in the 2nd inning on Saturday, the Angels offense didn't fare much better against Justin Verlander. Eleven Angels batters struck out against him-- all of them swinging-- and he departed after the 6th inning having not allowed a run. Verlander has posted that 11-K, 0-run line twice this season, but so have Gerrit Cole (three times) and Charlie Morton. The total of six starts with 11+ strikeouts and no runs allowed (any number of innings) is the most in Astros history, topping the five by Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott, and Jim Deshaies in 1987.
The Angels would go on to drop a 7-0 decision, their worst shutout loss ever against Houston, with George Springer's grand slam in the 6th being the final nail in the coffin. Springer became just the second Astros batter ever to hit a slam in Anaheim, joining Chris Carter (off Hector Santiago) on July 5, 2014. His career total of five slams now trails only Carlos Lee (seven), Bob Aspromonte (six), and Jeff Bagwell (six) in the Houston record book. And the Astros scored those seven runs on only five hits, thanks largely to an eight-pack of walks issued by Angels pitchers. Houston's last "7 on 5" game was June 27, 2002, against Arizona; they've won all five games in team history where they've done it.
But have we mentioned you can't save those runs? Works the other way too. After getting two-hit on Friday and shut out on Saturday, the Angels exploded for 14 runs in Sunday's finale including a seven-run 7th, their first (exactly) since August 28, 2009. The 14-5 win was the first by that exact count in Angels history, and Houston's first loss since June 22, 1994, at
Sunday's game was another one of those group efforts, but David Fletcher had three hits, three runs scored, and two RBIs out of the 9-hole, which is always interesting. Martin Maldonado also did that on May 2 against the Orioles; it's just the second time in Angels history that two players have posted that line in the same season. The other pair was Dave Skaggs and Tom Donohue in 1990.
And while he was not out there for that big 7th inning, Lance McCullers staked the Angels to an early lead by issuing five walks and throwing a wild pitch en route to five earned runs. Those four days off last week apparently didn't help, because McCullers did the same thing in his last start on July 11 (except it was two wild pitches!). That game was the first time any Astros pitcher had done it since... Lance McCullers three months earlier against the Twins. He's the first hurler in Astros history with five runs, five walks, and at least one wild pitch in consecutive outings, and the first ever to do it thrice in a season.
Take It To The Bridge
Up the coast, the Bay Bridge series was brewing again over the weekend, this time on the east end. Friday's 5-1 snoozefest was marked by peak #bullpenning; the Athletics had four consecutive relievers face either one or two batters each in trying to get the last four outs of the game (in a loss!). That's only happened three times in the Athletics' post-Philadelphia history, and the other two games were in September.
Saturday, however, was a slightly different affair, with Madison Bumgarner staking Oakland to an early lead by walking six batters, including three in a row before being pulled in the 5th. He became the first Giants pitcher to allow only two hits, but give out six free passes, since Barry Zito did it against the Marlins on May 2, 2012. Combined with Tyler Chatwood's game mentioned earlier, it was the first day on which two pitchers had done that (≤ 2 H, 6+ BB) since April 30, 2011, and one of them was a Giant as well. Jonathan Sanchez paired with the Royals' Sean O'Sullivan on a day when their offenses bailed out both of them and the team went on to win.
The Giants on Saturday, however, did not go on to win. They did get MadBum off the hook with a replay-upheld Hunter Pence double in the top of the 9th, after Alen Hanson would otherwise have struck out to end the game but reached on a wild pitch. Ultimately, though, it was Jonathan Lucroy's walkoff single in the 11th-- the third consecutive hit off Will Smith, which writes itself-- to give the A's their fourth walkoff win ever against those West Bay types. Marco Scutaro (June 26, 2004) hit the only other single, and the only other one in extras, while Derek Norris (June 24, 2012) and Olmedo Saenz (July 15, 1999) each launched three-run homers.
As it turns out, Lucroy also had a walkoff single in the 11th inning to beat the Angels back on June 17. The last Oaklander with multiple walkoff singles in the 11th or later in the same season was Scott Hatteberg in 2003. And the only other one with any walkoff against two different fellow California teams is the aforementioned Marco Scutaro; after beating the Giants in '04, he also had walkoffs against Anaheim in both '05 and '06.
"Did someone say walkoff single?" Why, yes, Matt Chapman, someone did. You might remember scoring that winning run in the 11th on Saturday. But aside from maybe Sid Bream and Matt Holliday, the runner who scores isn't usually the one who gets the attention. So naturally, after another back-and-forth game on Sunday, with Andrew McCutchen and Khris Davis trading solo homers in the 8th, it was bound to be Chapman who came to the plate in the bottom of the 10th with Marcus Semien on second. Brandon Crawford charges but can't handle a weird hop, the ball skips off his glove behind second base, and Semien scores another walkoff. At this writing it's still scored an infield single with an RBI for Chapman, making him the first Oaklander to score a walkoff run in extras one game, and then drive it in the following game, since Frank Menechino did that against the Yankees on May 15 and 16, 2001. Oakland had not won consecutive extra-inning games in walkoff fashion since beating the Orioles and Angels on April 28 and 29, 2013, and the last time it was against the same opponent was the White Sox on June 1 and 2, 2004 (Bobby Kielty and Mark Kotsay both homered).
Of course, the game probably wouldn't have gone to extras without four home runs from Davis and Matt Olson. They became the first A's teammates to each have a multi-homer game at the cavernous Oakland Coliseum since Randy Velarde and John Jaha did it in an 11-10 win over Cleveland on August 24, 1999.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Red Sox, Friday: First 1-0 win where the run came in the 1st inning since June 7, 2007, at Oakland. Otherwise known as The Julio Lugo Game, where his error stood between Curt Schilling and a perfect game until Shannon Stewart broke it up in the 9th.
⚾ Derek Dietrich, Friday: First leadoff batter in Marlins history not named Hanley Ramirez to have 2 HR and 4 RBI in a game. (Hanley did it twice, more recently on June 8, 2008.)
⚾ Ronald Acuña & Juan Soto, Friday: First opposing players in live-ball era, both under the age of 21, to homer in same game. All other times two players have done it, they were teammates; most recent pair was Mike Anderson and Greg Luzinski for the Phillies on September 28, 1971.
⚾ Chasen Shreve, Saturday: First Yankee to get a 1-inning save while facing only two batters (retired an inherited runner on a double play) since Mariano Rivera at Oakland on August 2, 2003.
⚾ Clayton Kershaw, Saturday: Eighth time in career allowing a home run, a triple, and a double in the same game. But Brewers are first opponent among those eight to hit all of them in the same inning.
⚾ Red Sox, Saturday: First time this season being shut out by 4 or more runs. Mysteriously, the only team that hasn't had it happen yet is the Twins.
⚾ Matt Harvey, Sunday: First Reds pitcher to get tagged for eight runs and four homers since Brandon Claussen at Milwaukee, April 22, 2006. First to do it at home since one Joey Jay at (!) Crosley Field on July 20, 1961.
⚾ Daniel Robertson, Sunday: First walkoff grand slam (pinch-hit or otherwise) in Rays history. Since the Rockies got their first one in 2009, had been only one of the 30 active franchises to never hit one.
⚾ Drew Butera, Sunday: First go-ahead inside-the-park homer for Royals in the 8th inning or later since Brian McRae (there he is again!) at Toronto, July 17, 1993.
⚾ Colin Moran (Fri), Josh Bell (Sat), Corey Dickerson (Sun): First time Pirates have had a player with four hits in three consecutive games since August 11 (Willie Stargell vs SD), 12 (Al Oliver at CIN), and 13 (Richie Hebner and Richie Zisk) of 1974.
No comments:
Post a Comment