Zero Hour
One of our favorite quirky boxscore lines, mostly because it doesn't happen often (that's what makes it quirky, right?) is the rare hitter who can go an entire game without an at-bat. There are of course several things that are completely ignored for batting-average purposes, walks, hit-by-pitches, and sacrifices being easily the most common. So when a batter can achieve one of those things every time up-- four, sometimes five in a game-- he's played the entire game and, at least according to the boxscore, done absolutely nothing.
There were only six such games the entire season, and naturally one of them was brought to us on Wednesday by Christian Yelich of the Brewers, who finished off an MVP-worthy September (and maybe even a season) by drawing five walks against the Cardinals. And while none of them was officially listed as "intentional", Yelich didn't swing at a single pitch after fouling off four of them in the 1st inning. He'll just stand there, bat in hand for some reason (remember last week we discussed that there's actually no rule requiring you to take one), and trot down to first base. He'd later end up scoring on two of those trips. Only one other player in Brewers/Pilots history had drawn five walks in a nine-inning game, and it's not Ryan Braun. It dates to their first season in Milwaukee; Danny Walton did it against the Royals on May 22, 1970. And the only other starter (read, not a pinch runner) in team history to have zero at-bats but still score twice was the great Sixto Lezcano against Baltimore on April 8, 1978.
Now check the score of Wednesday's game. Yelich-- er, we mean Brewers-- 2, Cardinals 1. In the "Retrosheet" era (1907) there is no other player who had zero at-bats in a game, yet still scored multiple runs and scored every run for his team.
Perhaps the reason the Cardinals didn't want to deal with Yelich on Wednesday was because of Tuesday's contribution to the "quirk" department. He only scored one run in that game, and it was a fairly meaningless one in the 9th with Milwaukee already up 11-4. Tuesday's antics were about how he drove runs in; that 9th-inning run was the final one of a three-run homer, which came after his bases-loaded triple in the 4th started to blow the game open. That's six RBIs (half of the Brewers' runs) and the first time a visiting player has homered, tripled, and driven in six at the new Busch Stadium which opened in 2006. (Colby Rasmus, in 2011, is the only Cardinal to ever do it.) That line has only been done by five players in Brewers history, and one of them is Ryan Braun (April 30, 2012, at San Diego). The others before that were Richie Sexson (2002), Greg Vaughn (1995), and Mike Hegan (1976), and none of them did it with the combo of a three-run homer and a three-run triple (they all got at least one RBI in some other fashion).
You Complete Me
The 2018 season will largely be remembered as the year of the "opener", a logical extension of the "bullpenning" trend in which teams either piece together games an inning or two at a time, or throw a reliever out there for the first few hitters and then switch him out for the guy who you would have called the starter last year. (In other news, maybe "long relief" is back?) Thus for pitchers the complete game has easily become the exception rather than the rule it once was. This was the first season in baseball history in which no pitcher threw four complete games, and when Trevor Bauer relieved Carlos Carrasco on Sunday, it also meant no pitcher in 2018 even tossed three.
So it was that on Monday, Bryan Mitchell of the Padres went to the 9th inning with a 5-0 lead and having thrown "only" 97 pitches. It (probably) wasn't the Brandon Crawford leadoff double that did him in, it was the two walks after that. With that all-important "pitch count" now at 118, it is now time to delay the game for four more minutes and make a two-out pitching change so that Kirby Yates can end things four pitches later. Because none of those runners ended up scoring, Mitchell ended up as the third pitcher in Padres history to work exactly 8⅔ innings and give up zero runs. And the others both did it in 1-0 games where they put two runners on in the 9th and suddenly stood to lose. For the record, they were Bruce Hurst on May 29, 1989, against Philadelphia, and Dan Spillner versus the Astros on September 12, 1975.
Yates, meanwhile, became the 51st pitcher this season to "earn" a save while facing only one batter; that's actually fairly in line with recent years and exactly matches last season's total, but four of those 51 did it for San Diego. That's more such saves than the Padres recorded in the previous five seasons combined.
And an honorable mention in the "finishing" department to Sergio Romo, now of the Rays, who (probably not intentionally) exploited every loophole in the save rule in Wednesday's 8-7 win over the Yankees. Romo entered as the eighth pitcher of the game (did we mention "#bullpenning"?) after Hunter Wood got the first two outs of the 8th but was apparently spent after eight pitches. Former Yankee Vidal Nuño came on, threw one pitch, hit Neil Walker with it, and so obviously he's got nothing, pitching change! Romo gets the last out of the 8th to preserve a 4-3 lead, after which the Rays offense goes on a spree and scores four runs. Now holding an 8-3 lead, Romo gets the first out of the 9th and then gives up five straight singles to make it 8-7 with the go-ahead run suddenly at the plate. Romo hung on to get the last two outs, and because it was a one-run game when he came in, and still a one-run game when it ended, it doesn't matter that the teams traded 4's in between. The Rays never lost the lead, and thus Romo became the first pitcher in Tampa Bay history to "earn" a save while giving up four runs. There is, of course, the "three-inning" save loophole, but if you exclude that, no pitcher in the majors had gotten a four-run save since Mike Timlin of the Mariners did it against Chicago on August 24, 1998. And for even more coincidental fun, Willie Banks of Arizona also had a four-run save on that exact same day in 1998, but at Shea Stadium about 2½ hours earlier thanks to the rotation of the earth. Banks's game included unearned runs as well, so if you add the qualifier of four earned runs in a save of under three innings, it's Romo, Timlin, and Mark Clear of the Angels on July 25, 1979. That's the list.
Hold On For One More Day
Logically, the only pitcher who can get credit for a complete game is the one who starts it, and by rule, the only pitcher who can get credit for a save is the one who finishes it. So what about all those guys in the middle who do neither? Well, for them, someone created one of those stats people love to hate, the "hold". Where you would have gotten a save if you had been able to make it to the end of the game, but you couldn't (or your manager wouldn't let you because #bullpenning), so here's a ribbon for trying.
Enter Robert Gsellman of the Mets in Tuesday's game with the Braves. Noah Syndergaard departs after six innings with a 3-0 lead (save situation!), and Gsellman promptly gives up two hits, a walk, and gets burned when Austin Jackson boots a line drive to center. So it's 3-1 with the bases loaded, but the Mets still haven't lost the lead. So it's still a save situation when Gsellman leaves, hence the great "hold". And one of the fun parts about holds is that it doesn't matter what the next pitcher does. Or gives up. Drew Smith, on back-to-back pitches, bounces one to score a second run, then surrenders a two-run single to Ronald Acuña and the Mets now trail. Like Romo before him, Gsellman thus gives up four runs despite entering in a save situation and still leaving in a save situation. Only six Mets pitchers have ever done that, and it hadn't happened since Randy Myers did it against Milwaukee on September 24, 1989. And only 17 have ever gotten a hold and a loss in the same game (which is only possible when a following pitcher allows inherited runners to score). A.J. Ramos also pulled that off against Washington on April 16; the last season where two Mets did it was 1995.
Acuña's single, by the way, was only the second one the Braves have ever hit at either Shea or Citi Field to turn a deficit into a lead in the 7th or later. Orlando Cepeda had the other one, on May 22, 1971.
And honorable mention here to Monday's Astros game where they "needed" six pitchers to protect a 4-3 lead against Toronto. None of them threw more than 13 pitches. Only the last one (Roberto Osuna) can get the save, so the five in the middle-- who scattered three hits and no runs between them-- all get credited with a "hold". It's the first game in Astros history where they had five holds, and the fourth in the majors this season. Three were in September when all the teams have ridiculous 17-man bullpens.
Sleepless In Seattle
Most nights throughout the season (getaway Thursdays being a welcome exception), we await the finish of some sluggish AL West game that somehow takes 3½ hours despite the score being 2-1. That was true on Tuesday as well, but between Oakland and Seattle it became clear very early that nobody would be finishing what they started. Brett Anderson got tagged for seven hits including two homers before leaving in the 3rd inning, outdone only by Mike Leake who gave up six runs and got only four outs. Only one other game this season (Twins/Royals, September 7) saw both starters give up five earned runs while getting no more than seven outs, and for each team it had been two seasons since any starter had posted their respective lines.
After the teams added their standard one or two runs that they usually score in each game, we headed to the 8th with Oakland up 8-5 and Fernando Rodney coming on as the thirteenth pitcher of the game between both teams (does anyone really enjoy this?). Rodney walks leadoff batter Ryon Healy, then bounces three straight pitches to Daniel Vogelbach, walking him and sending Healy around to third. Denard Span then doubles in both runs before Rodney gets out of the inning. Meaning he gets credit for an unusual "hold" as well; he allowed three baserunners, two runs, and threw two wild pitches, but the A's still lead 8-7, so here's your ribbon. Only two other Oakland pitchers had ever posted that line and "earned" a hold: Fautino De Los Santos at Texas on September 10, 2011, and Bob Lacey in Detroit on September 3, 1977.
It would be the game's fifteenth pitcher, Blake Treinen, who ended up with the blown save when Matt Chapman's two-out error extended the bottom of the 9th and Kyle Seager singled home the tying run. Seager also had a game-tying (not go-ahead) hit on August 25 in Arizona when the Mariners were down to their final out; Ichiro Suzuki is the only other player in team history to hit two in a season (2001), and the only one with more than Seager in his career (five to four).
Finally in the bottom of the 11th, now on our eighteenth pitcher, Ben Gamel draws a one-out walk and then Former New Britain Rock Cat Chris Herrmann slams a pinch-hit walkoff homer. His was the first such dinger in team history in the 11th or later, and Seattle's latest-ever walkoff homer against Oakland (pinch-hit or otherwise).
And we'll reserve an honorable mention for Gamel, who entered in the 9th as a pinch runner and thus does not qualify for complete-game 0-for-0 greatness. But he scored that tying run on Seager's single, and then technically the go-ahead run in advance of Herrmann's homer. Only seven players in Mariners history have gone 0-for-0 in a game and scored multiple runs, and the last three have all scored the winning run in a walkoff as well. Seth Smith in 2015 and Michael Saunders in 2013 were the ones before Gamel; the rest of the list (non-walkoff category) includes Trayvon Robinson (2012), Rickey Henderson (2000), Alex Rodriguez (2000), and Charles Gipson (1999).
It's the last post of the regular season. You've made it this far. Still more fun stuff ahead, we promise. Intermission!
I'm Into Something Good
Chris Herrmann wasn't the only one this week to finish off what someone else started. As always, we had our fair share of walkoffs, but in September, with expanded rosters and so many teams having nothing left to play for, well, why not have a little fun with the lineup?
The Brewers and Cardinals were locked in a 4-4 tie going to the 8th inning on Monday when Eric Thames was sent up to pinch-hit in the pitcher's spot. Thames, who had an epic journey back to the major leagues after spending years in triple-A and then Korea, connected for his third triple of the season and then scored what would prove to be the winning run when Bud Norris airmailed a pickoff attempt. Only three players in Brewers/Pilots history have recorded a pinch-hit triple in a tie game and then scored a go-ahead run on the same trip around the bases; the others are Dan Thomas on April 19, 1977, and-- finally making that "Pilots" reference relevant!-- Jim Gosger on May 16, 1969. Incidentally, Dan Jennings "started" Monday's game for the Brewers for the sole purpose of retiring leadoff batter Matt Carpenter. He did so on three pitches and then real starter Freddy Peralta was subbed in. That made Jennings the first Milwaukee "starter" to leave after one batter since Jamie McAndrew blew out his knee after four pitches on August 28, 1995 (he had surgery and missed all of the '96 season).
Meanwhile, the Angels and Rangers were fighting another epic AL West battle, with Anaheim clinging to a 4-3 lead in the 9th. After Ty Buttrey got the first two outs, Ronald Guzman doubled, was pinch-run for by Delino DeShields, and then Elvis Andrus was sent up to hit for Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Andrus, of course, shoots a ground ball into left for the tying run, the Angels challenge whether DeShields touched third, but ultimately we end up in extras. In Rangers/Senators history it was only the third time that a pinch hit had driven in a tying or go-ahead pinch runner when the team was down to its final out. On September 10, 1987, also against the Angels, PH Darrell Porter singled home PR Greg Tabor to tie the game in the 9th, though the Angels walked off in the 10th. And on August 6, 1976, it was Mike Jorgensen-- pinch-running for Mike Hargrove-- who scored on Gary Gray's pinch-hit walkoff homer against Cleveland.
This one took two extra frames, but Monday's game ended in yet another walkoff when Matt Moore trotted out for the bottom of the 11th, Jose Briceno was announced as a pinch-hitter, and then Jose Briceno was announced as the [insert sponsor name here] Player Of The Game for hitting a walkoff homer on the third pitch. In team history the Angels have only had two other pinch-hit walkoff homers in extra innings, and it's been a while. The others came from Daryl Sconiers against Boston on April 30, 1983, and Adrian Garrett to beat the White Sox on September 22, 1975.
And it was somehow fitting that in David Wright's final game on Saturday, the Mets-- or more specifically Austin Jackson-- would find a way to get him into this post. After fouling out in his second plate appearance, Wright made an emotional journey off the field at the start of the 5th inning. His replacement, Amed Rosario, probably wasn't expecting to play nine innings. But it's a meaningless Mets/Marlins game on the final weekend of the season, so let's have a staring contest to see if either team can score. Nope. Maybe in the 10th? 11th? Keep going. The Marlins hadn't played a game that was scoreless through 12 since May 23, 2015, when Martin Prado walked off in the 13th against the Orioles. The Mets hadn't done so since July 19, 2015, against the Cardinals, when they traded runs in the 13th and it took an error by Carlos Martinez in the 18th to finally break the deadlock. On Saturday "Jarlin the Marlin" Garcia gave up a single and a walk in the 13th to bring up Jackson. Enter Javy Guerra, presumably for lefty/righty purposes, but exit his first pitch and enter here for the 7-train. Guerra is just the second pitcher in Marlins history to give up a walkoff anything on the first pitch he threw in a game; Cincinnati's Aaron Boone homered off Dan Miceli on May 26, 2000.
And the Wright connection? Well, it turns out the Mets have had just three walkoff doubles in their history in the 13th inning or later. Weirdly, two of them have been hit on September 29 (Jeff Kent in 1993). The other was May 5, 2006, by David Wright to beat the Braves.
Snake, Bit
The walkoff giveth, the walkoff taketh away. Just ask your local Diamondbacks fan after they gave up a game-tying double to Chris Taylor in the top of the 9th on Tuesday, only to watch Eduardo Escobar lead off the bottom half against Kenta Maeda with a walkoff tater. Taylor's double, which was of the automatic ("ground-rule") variety when it bounced into the Chase Field pool, was the first tying or go-ahead hit of that type for the Dodgers since Manny Mota hit a walkoff "ground-rule" double against the Reds on September 4, 1972, with Bill Russell on second. The strange irony about the walkoff homer is that Escobar had been intentionally walked to load the bases back in the 7th, a strategy that backfired when Ildemaro Vargas hit a go-ahead single that gave Taylor the opportunity to come back. Only two other players in Arizona history had received an intentional walk and then later hit a walkoff homer, making us wonder whether they maybe should have walked him again?. Those other two are Steve Finley against the Mets (August 9, 2003), and Reggie Sanders, also against the Rockies, on July 1, 2001.
Arizona would then head to San Diego for a season-ending weekend series, and as the visiting team, the only walkoff you can be involved in is one you lose. Yeah, they did.
We'll concede it did take a while; this season the NL West has been just as bad about scoring as the AL West has historically. So when Jose Pirela homers in the 7th to make it 1-1, ugh, we're gonna be here a while. And we were. Oh, it looked promising when Ketel Marte doubled to lead off the 12th, the Dodgers issued two intentional walks to load the bases, and then that backfired when Nick Ahmed hit the first D'backs sacrifice fly in the 13th or later since Martin Prado "walked off" against the Cardinals on April 3, 2013. But nope. Continuing our pinch-hitter theme, Hunter Renfroe wanders to the plate with two outs and boom, game-tying solo homer to keep us here even longer. The Padres had seen eight other extra-inning pitch-hit homers in team history, but only one when trailing-- and even that was a walkoff. Mark Parent hit a two-run shot to turn a 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 win against the Dodgers, exactly 30 years to the day before Ahmed's tater.
It would finally be Freddy Galvis who ended this thing by doubling home Javy Guerra in the 15th after the latter drew a leadoff walk. By inning it was the latest walkoff double in Padres history, coming one frame later than the one Brian Giles hit to beat the Mets on April 21, 2006. And the Diamondbacks hadn't allowed one in even the 11th inning or later until Friday. For the Padres, Eric Hosmer also had a walkoff double against St Louis on May 12, the first time they've had two in a season since Champ Summers and Luis Salazar hit them in 1984.
Galvis knows a little something about walkoffs giveth-ing and taketh-ing as well; more on that in a moment.
And Adalberto Mondesi of the Royals actually did end up finishing what he started on Thursday when he drew a two-out walk in the 10th inning against Cleveland. One pitch later he had stolen second. Five pitches later, already running on a 3-2 offering with two outs, he had stolen third. And then Sal Perez rolls the first ball from Neil Ramirez into left field for a walkoff. Only three other players in Royals history have stolen two bases and then scored the winning run all in the same inning; Gregor Blanco did it on August 22, 2010, against the White Sox, and the others are only Kansas City legends Tom Goodwin (1996) and George Brett (1976; his second steal was of home to win the game). And that 1-1 score that sent us to extras? Well, that's thanks to a solo homer by Mondesi way back in the 3rd. He's the first player in Royals history to homer, steal two bases, and score every run for the team in a game they won (including 1-0 scores).
Pitchers Who Rake
If the era of complete games is in fact coming to an end, then at least some pitchers are finding other ways to put the finishing touches on their starts. Cole Hamels lost Monday's game against Pittsburgh after giving up an early two-run homer to Francisco Cervelli. But when the first time around the lineup couldn't get a hit, Hamels had to take matters into his own hands, leading off the 3rd inning with a solo homer to break up the no-hitter and the shutout. It was the second longball of his career; the other came July 21, 2012, at San Francisco, in what is still the last game where both starting pitchers homered (Matt Cain was the other). Unfortunately Hamels didn't spark the Cubs' offense; they collected only six more singles in the game after that, and half of those were slow rollers to the infield that they managed to beat. So when the final score remained 5-1, Hamels also became just the second Cubs pitcher whose solo homer ended up as their only run of a game at Wrigley Field. Travis Wood was the other; he did it in a 4-1 loss to Milwaukee on August 28, 2012.
We've covered the hitting stylings of Cincinnati's Michael Lorenzen in the past, especially around the end of June when he homered in a pitching start, then showed up as a pinch hitter the next day and busted a grand slam. On Saturday it was pitching time again, and in the 4th inning Lorenzen drove in Dilson Herrera who had doubled in front of him. That would prove to be the Reds' last run of the game, but also all they needed, in a 3-0 win over the Pirates. That also gave Lorenzen 10 RBIs on the season, just the second Cincinnati pitcher in the past 40 seasons to hit double digits (the other was Micah Owings in 2009). And thanks to that grand slam, five of his RBIs have come as a pitcher and five others as a pinch hitter. The only other Reds batter who can make that claim is Charles "Red" Lucas who pulled that off in six different seasons, but most recently in 1933.
Earlier in the week it was the Kansas City Royals who paid a rare interleague visit to Great American Ball Park, and that means that not only do the Reds pitchers get to hit, but the Royals' do too. Rookie Heath Fillmyer threw seven innings of one-run ball on Wednesday and ended up getting the victory, but it was an offense where he caught our attention. Fillmyer came up through the Oakland system and thus never had a plate appearance in the minor leagues either. He struck out in his hitting debut in Pittsburgh earlier this month. But in the 4th inning on Thursday he successfully laid down a sacrifice bunt to put two men in scoring position for Whit Merrifield (who promptly popped up and didn't score them), and in the 6th, after Alcides Escobar reached on a two-out error, Fillmyer roped his first major-league hit, an RBI double to center to give the Royals a 5-1 lead. The bunt wasn't all that notable; Jason Hammel hit one at Dodger Stadium last July. The RBI double was a little better; James Shields was the last Royals pitcher to hit one of those, doing so in St Louis on June 3, 2014. But Fillmyer is just the second pitcher in Royals history with both of those things in the same game, and the other was in their first season of existence-- against another team in its first season of existence, and prior to the designated hitter. Dick Drago did it at Sick's Seattle Stadium (that's another Seattle Pilots reference!) on September 4, 1969.
Lorenzen may have stolen the show when it comes to pitchers hitting this season, but Madison Bumgarner wouldn't let it end without one last reminder that he's still around. The guy who once batted for himself in an AL interleague game (declining the use of the DH, which you can do), and who lobbied for a spot in the Home Run Derby, didn't pitch Tuesday. But seven other Giants did. And they used up four bench players in retaking the lead from San Diego in the 7th, only to see Wil Myers double and score in the 9th to send us to extras. So when Gorkys Hernandez leads off the bottom of the 12th with a triple, and the pitcher's spot is up next, well, send up a pitcher. (Sidebar: Evan Longoria also had a leadoff triple in extra innings on July 31; it's the first time the Giants have had two in a season since Gary Matthews and Mike Phillips hit them in 1973.) Except that pitcher wasn't Mark Melançon who was in the game. It was Madison Bumgarner, and two balls later, that pitcher got a win. Actually both of them did. MadBum's single was the third pinch-hit walkoff in extra innings against the Padres in Giants history, joining a Kevin Bass 11th-inning single in 1992 and a Bengie Molina double in the 10th on April 22, 2009. Nick Hundley also beat the Padres with a pinch-hit walkoff on April 30, the first time the Giants have recorded two against the same opponent since Rikkert Faneyte and Glenallen Hill both walked off against the Mets in 1995. And at the risk of burying the lead, MadBum's hit was the first walkoff anything by a Giants pitcher-as-pinch-hitter since Don Robinson beat the Astros on July 31, 1990.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Yankees/Red Sox, Sunday: First regular season game where both teams had 100+ wins coming in since the Giants and Dodgers played MLB's last three-game tiebreaker series in October 1962.
⚾ Red Sox, Wednesday (day game): Second team in live-ball era to have nine different players hit a double (Indians at Twins, July 13, 1996). First time Boston had 14 extra-base hits since a 29-4 win over the Browns on June 8, 1950.
⚾ Trey Mancini, Wednesday: First Orioles batter to homer in one game of a doubleheader and triple in the other (either order) since Rafael Palmeiro, also at Fenway, June 10, 1997.
⚾ Justin Verlander, Saturday: Third game this year where he struck out 10, allowed 0 runs, and didn't get the win. First pitcher in live-ball era to have three such games in a season.
⚾ Indians/Royals, Friday: First game in the history of Kauffman Stadium (1973) where multiple grand slams were hit (regardless of team).
⚾ Angels, Sunday: Fifth time in team history winning their last game of the season via walkoff. The previous one was a Gary Disarcina single, and it wasn't supposed to be their last game. It was August 10, 1994, before the strike. (The other years were 1982, 1974, and 1970.)
⚾ Matt Wieters, Monday: Second catcher in Nats/Expos history with a homer and three walks in same game. Gary Carter did it against the Reds on May 28, 1982.
⚾ Freddie Freeman, Friday: Second Braves hitter in live-ball era to reach base five times, have at least three extra-base hits, and never score a run. Max West did it against Brooklyn on July 5, 1940.
⚾ Luis Severino, Tuesday: First Yankees pitcher to give up 4+ hits with all of them being doubles since Dave Pavlas against the Angels on August 29, 1996.
⚾ CC Sabathia, Thursday: First Yankees starter to give up 0 runs, 1 hit, 0 walks, and get a win (so minimum 5 IP) since Mike Mussina at Fenway on September 2, 2001-- when 27th batter Carl Everett broke up his perfect game.
⚾ Mets, Sat-Sun: Third time in team history winning back-to-back games by a score of 1-0. Did it in a doubleheader with Pittsburgh on September 12, 1969 (pitchers drove in both runs!), and also in September 1966 against two different opponents.
⚾ Jacob deGrom, Wednesday: Second career game (May 21, 2015 vs Cardinals) where he struck out 10 and allowed no more than two baserunners. Only other Mets pitcher to do it twice is Tom Seaver, and he allowed a run in one of the games.
⚾ Tucker Barnhart, Friday: First Reds batter with a five-hit game that included a triple and a homer since Cesar Geronimo at San Diego, June 29, 1976.
⚾ David Dahl, Mon-Thu: Fourth batter in Rockies history to have a homer and multiple RBIs in four straight games, joining Larry Walker (1999), Vinny Castilla (1998), and Dante Bichette (1995).
⚾ Charlie Blackmon, Sunday: Third player in Rockies history to hit for the cycle and score at least three runs. Others are Michael Cuddyer (August 17, 2014) and Mike Lansing (June 18, 2000).
⚾ Victor Robles, Wednesday: Second leadoff batter in Nats/Expos history with 4 hits and 5 RBI in a game. Alfonso Soriano did it against the Braves on April 21, 2006.
⚾ Austin Davis, Monday: First Phillies pitcher to issue two bases-loaded walks and a wild pitch in same game since Toby Borland against the Yankees on June 30, 1998.
Did You Know?
Before the Pilots, Sick's Stadium had hosted the triple-A Seattle Rainiers for decades. That's a different team from the current Tacoma Rainiers; both existed for a time in the 1960s, though the Tacoma team was named either Giants or Cubs depending on its affiliation. The park was named after Emil Sick, owner of the team, and was eventually purchased by the City of Seattle after his death-- not for baseball, but because the city wanted the land for a freeway (which was never built). After the Pilots left a short-season Northwest League team played there in the 1970s before the expansion Mariners came along. The park was demolished in 1979 and is now home to a Lowe's store. There's a home-plate marker in the parking lot and a pitching rubber near the cash registers. One of its neon signs still lives at Safeco Field, in a gallery devoted to the history of baseball in the Pacific Northwest.
Great column. But (picky picky) that Hamels-Cain HR game on 7/21/2012 was in Philly, not SF.
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