20/20 Hindsight
If "hindsight" refers to the batter looking back as the ball whizzes past him for a strikeout, well, we had some teams that were nearly perfect this week, led by Friday's lineup for the Blue Jays. Any game involving Cleveland has potential for a bunch of strikeouts, and Carlos Carrasco served up 14 of the darned things-- 11 swinging-- but back-to-back doubles in the 7th meant he left a tie game, 2-2, and couldn't even get the win. He's the first Cleveland pitcher to fan 14+, allow 1 earned run, and not win since Dennis Eckersley took a complete-game loss against the Rangers on August 13, 1976. And combined with his friends Justin Verlander, James Paxton, and Max Scherzer, four different pitchers have done it at least once this year. That's the most in any season since earned runs were first recognized by either league in 1912.
Oliver Perez (now in his 16th season!) struck out two more in the 9th and sent us off to extra innings with that 2-2 tie still intact. Brad Hand gave up a leadoff single in the 10th but then struck out the side. He also got Rowdy Tellez to begin the 11th, Toronto's twentieth strikeout of the night. Time to bring in Adam Cimber. Annnnnd time to go home. His first opponent, Kevin Pillar, sends a solo homer to left-center for the 3-2 walkoff. The Jays had never hit a walkoff homer against Cleveland in the 11th or later (they have hit three in the 10th), and Cimber is the first Indians pitcher to surrender an extra-inning walkoff homer to his first batter faced since Jason Davis (to then-Angel Orlando Cabrera) on April 21, 2005.
Those 20 strikeouts marked the first time in Cleveland history that they'd fanned that many opponents and still lost. And on the Toronto side, it set a major-league record for the shortest game where a team struck out 20 times and won. The Cubs and Yankees had that memorable Sunday night game last season that set a record with 48 combined whiffs, but that took 18 innings. Friday marked the first time a team had fanned 20 times, out of 31 or fewer total outs, and still pulled out a victory. The Dodgers did it in 32 outs in a 1-0 walkoff win over Cincinnati on July 28, 2013.
West K Street
The Brewers pulled off a similar feat on Friday, fanning 13 times and collecting only three hits in their game against the Giants. Not really a formula for success. But sure enough, among those three hits were a two-run homer by Ryan Braun, and a two-run double by Jesús Aguilar that followed a pair of walks. And darned if they didn't win also, 4-2. It was just the second time in Brewers/Pilots history that they'd had three or fewer hits, 13 strikeouts, and pulled out a win-- and the first was just 11 weeks earlier, on June 22 against the Cardinals. In the Retrosheet era (1907), they are the first team ever to pull that off twice in the same season.
The Giants, for their part, lost that game-- and a bunch of others this week-- because they also struck out 13 times. We'll have more on their sweep by the Rockies a bit later, but suffice it to say they had 11 strikeouts in every game of that series as well. And in every game of the Mets series last weekend. When San Francisco whiffed 11 more times in Saturday's loss, not only did they create a seven-game losing streak, but they created the first streak by any team in the live-ball era where an offense fanned 11+ times in eight straight games. Two other teams had gotten to seven straight, including the White Sox last month (the 2016 Padres were the other).
And while we're spending Saturday night with the NL West, the Dodgers "only" got to 14 strikeouts in their game, but they too lost at Coors Field, just as the Giants had thrice before them. They did at least score two runs, but couldn't overcome a Charlie Blackmon two-run shot in the 5th. That marked their fifth game this season where they struck out 14+ times and lost, most in Dodgers history. They had gotten to four such games multiple times, but the last of those seasons was as recent as 2016.
You Say "K", I Say "Grand"
Also on Friday, the Reds fanned 15 times against the Padres... and they won too. In fact, they won big thanks to Phillip Ervin's two homers and a Scott Schebler grand slam (hey, look, more True Outcomes). Ervin, still considered a rookie for this year's purposes (he played just 28 games last season), batted 8th and ended up with four runs scored including two on his own homers and one on Schebler's. Only one other player in Reds history scored four and drove in four while batting either 8th or 9th; that was second baseman Alex Kampouris in a three-homer game at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia on May 9, 1937.
As for those strikeouts, though, it was the first game in (at least) the live-ball era where Cincinnati struck out 15+ times but still scored 12+ runs. The Padres had only thrown such a game once in their history, a 13-1 loss to Washington on July 25, 2009.
Since we're here, we'll point out that Schebler's grand slam was the 10th of the year for Cincinnati, breaking their team record of nine set in 2002. Five of them have been in the 6th inning or later, the team's most since 1985. And of course Joey Votto comes along and unleashes another one in a seven-run 2nd inning on Saturday, a thing that is now so common we don't even have a note for it. The Reds hit them in back-to-back games just two months ago (Michael Lorenzen and Jose Peraza), although, predictably, that's the first time they've had back-to-backs twice in a season. The last team to hit 11 slams in any season was the 2009 Phillies.
And the Tigers pulled off a similar trick on Tuesday, striking out 16 times in their game against the White Sox. Which they won, 8-3, when Lucas Giolito couldn't get out of the 2nd inning. Although they did pull it off in an extra-inning game with the Rays in 2015, Tuesday was the first game in Tigers history where they fanned 16 times but still scored at least eight runs. They followed that up with 12 strikeouts on Wednesday while also collecting 16 hits including seven for extra bases. The team had only reached those totals at Comiskey Park once before, and it was in their final game at the old place, a 10-7 win on July 4, 1990.
Breeze Off The Lake
The White Sox weren't immune from that strikeout bug either. Sunday's series finale with the Angels was a pitching matchup of Andrew Heaney and Reynaldo Lopez-- who are good enough but won't get any Cy Young votes. Instead it looked like the old days of Kershaw vs Bumgarner, with the offenses apparently competing to see who could do less. At the end of six innings they had managed just four hits, no runs, three walks, and 21 strikeouts. Reliever Ian Hamilton gave up a leadoff single to Jose Fernandez in the 7th, causing the Angels to accidentally score a run, which would end up as the only offense of the game. Heaney would finish the 7th with another strikeout, his 12th of the game, and the bullpen added two more.
For the White Sox offense, it was their first home game at the current Comiskey Park where they struck out at least 14 times and failed to score a run; their last such game at the old place was the 1989 season finale against Cleveland, a 1-0 loss where everyone just wants to go home and the only drama was whether they'd finish 28½ games out or 29½. And the Angels fanned 14 times of their own, the first time they'd done that in a 1-0 win since another meaningless season finale, this one against Texas in 1999.
Tackling the individual pitchers first, Lopez became the first White Sox hurler with 10 strikeouts and 0 runs allowed since Carlos Rodon did it in Cleveland in the final week of the 2016 season. Only the Pirates had gone longer without a pitcher having that line. And as for Heaney, he of 12 strikeouts and only three baserunners? Well, he's just the second pitcher in Angels history to do that in a road game, and the other is "only" Nolan Ryan's second no-hitter (May 15, 1973 at Detroit). They've only had three others do it in Anaheim, one of them being Shohei Ohtani in April (he might have overdone it).
But together, those two pitching performances made history. Regardless of number of innings pitched, only seven times since 1920 have opposing starters each allowed 0 runs and hit double digits in strikeouts. The only other such game this century was Rich Hill's famous "comeback" game for Boston (against the Rays' Drew Smyly) on September 13, 2015. And if you tack on a maximum of three hits allowed by both starters, well, history. Sunday's game was the first ever in the live-ball era where that's happened. You were expecting Koufax-Marichal or Kershaw-Bumgarner? Nope. Heaney-Lopez. As Friend of Kernels Jayson Stark likes to say, baseball!
I Walk The Line
Ask any summer intern who's in charge of playing goofy in-game sound effects for your local minor-league team, and they'll tell you about the dozens of song choices with the word "walk" in the title. We needed most of them to get through this week, nowhere moreso than Nationals Park.
It's been a really interesting 10-game homestand on South Capitol Street, and only sometimes has it been because of the actual action on the field. (See the action in the skies above, and various things falling from them, for more details.) But last Sunday, in a game that wouldn't have gotten too much attention if it hadn't started a trend, the Nationals issued 11 walks to Milwaukee in a 9-4 loss.
The Cardinals then came in for a three-game series on Monday and it must be contagious. Instead of the Nationals issuing double-digit walks, they instead received 10 walks from their St Louis foes, marking the first time in franchise history (1969) where the Nats/Expos had issued 10 walks in one game and been issued 10 walks in the next game (in either order). To be fair, they were involved in a game in 1973 where both teams issued 10 walks, and we can only imagine how thrilling that was.
With the Nats trailing 3-1, Bryce Harper tied Monday's game with a 9th-inning homer and then won it on a 12th-inning sacrifice fly. Sac flies are not a "true outcome" (although they do count against your on-base percentage), but Harper's was the first extra-inning sac-fly-off for the Nationals since Jose "throwin' on my Lobatons" hit one against the Marlins on September 18, 2015. Harper also became the first player in Nats/Expos history to hit a game-tying home run in the 9th, followed by a walkoff anything in extra innings.
The plate would also prove to be elusive on Tuesday, with Cardinals starter John Gant issuing five walks, the first to Trea Turner, the Nationals' second batter of the game. Bryce Harper then worked the count to 3-2 and Trea Turner was off with the pitch, trying to steal second regardless of what happened to Harper at the plate. Fair enough. The pitch to Harper was ball four, but Yadier Molina didn't wait to find that out, throwing down to second, where Turner had overslid the bag. After replay review and a few weird rules interpretations, Turner is actually out, despite being entitled to advance "without liability to be put out" because of the walk. Unfortunately for him, the rule also says that the ball isn't dead and he may continue to try and advance beyond the base he's entitled to "at his peril". So yes, by oversliding he can actually be tagged out. And if that nagging official-scorer voice in your head (surely someone else has one of these? Anyone? Sigh.) is saying, well, then if Turner was trying to steal and overslides and is tagged out, he should at least be charged with a CS. Nope. It took the Kernels Rules Desk a few minutes to sort this one out, but there's a comment in the scoring rules that a runner can't be charged a CS for being out, if he would not have gotten credit for an SB had he been safe. And he wouldn't have. The stolen base would have been nullified by the walk and the fact that he's forced to advance without liability. So yes, Harper walks, and Turner is just out 2-6. You see something new every day.
Now this was all in the 1st inning. And those were certainly the most interesting two walks of the game (if in fact a walk can be interesting), but the Nats would end up with nine more in an 11-8 dirge that would require 4 hours 10 minutes to finally complete. Remember their 10 walks from Monday? That's the first time in Nats/Expos franchise history that they've received 10 or more free passes in back-to-back games. In fact no team had done it in consecutive games against the same opponent since the Twins in Kansas City on August 4 and 5, 2006. The Cardinals had not issued double-digit walks in back-to-back games, same opponent or different, since before the stock-market crash. No, the other one. The last time they did it was July 12 and 13, 1929, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.
And jumping to the home run section, the reason the Cardinals won that game on Tuesday is because they hit five of the things, including two by Marcell Ozuna and a 9th-inning grand slam by Yadier Molina which would actually prove useful when the Nats loaded the bases in the bottom half. The only other slam hit by a Cardinals batter in Washington (including all the 19th-century teams) was two seasons ago by Stephen Piscotty. As a team, it was the first game where the Cardinals had ever hit five dingers in the nation's capital, and Ozuna is their first-ever player with a multi-homer game there. Matt Adams would then match Ozuna with two homers in Wednesday's win, the first time the Cardinals have had a multiple-homer hitter in consecutive games since Ryan Ludwick and Colby Rasmus did it in Phoenix on April 20 and 21, 2010. Ozuna would go on to hit two more homers against the Tigers on Friday, joining Rick Ankiel on June 25, 2008, as the only Cardinals with multi-homer games in Detroit.
Walk This Way
If you like both walks and strikeouts, well, we recommend you seek help, but as enablers, we give you Friday's Orioles/Rays game at Tropicana Field. It comes with four Rays homers and a 14-2 walloping because, thanks to all the walks, Ji-Man Choi hit a grand slam and two others were three-run blasts. That was only the second time in Rays history that they'd hit a trio of three-run homers in the same game; the other was July 20, 2003, against Texas (Aubrey Huff, Travis Lee, Al Martin).
The Rays' 11 walks were one shy of the team record (and oddly, the 11th time in team history they've had 11+ in a game), and it was the Orioles' first time issuing 11 or more since June 20, 2008, at Milwaukee (in a game they won!). It was the second home game in Rays history where they reached double digits in runs, hits, and walks all in the same game; the other was a 13-3 win over Boston on September 19, 2012.
And check out the Orioles' offense of that same boxscore. Two runs, six hits, zero walks, fifteen strikeouts. That's only the ninth game in Baltimore history with 15 K's and 0 BB's, and all have been since the year 2000. Three have been at Tropicana Field, including last year's season finale (which, again, really shouldn't count because it meant nothing to either team and they are just swinging so they can go home).
These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
A two-for-one Honorable Mention in the walks department to both Paul Goldschmidt and the Braves pitching staff, which were at odds with each other over the weekend. The Braves issued a total of nine walks to Arizona in their 5-3 loss on Friday while striking out only eight (pro tip: you usually want the strikeout number to be the higher of the two), its first time doing that since, um, well, Tuesday against the Red Sox when they lost 5-1. Atlanta hadn't had the 9+ BB, ≤ 8 K combo twice in four days since doing it against Cincinnati twice in the same series, July 4 and 6, 1977.
Goldy drew three of those walks on Friday after a 1st-inning homer; it was the 21st time in his career that Goldy had reached base four times, scored at least twice, and included a home run in that mix. Since his debut in August 2011, that trails only Mike Trout (30x); on Friday he passed Freddie Freeman, Edwin Encarnacion and Miguel Cabrera all in one swoop. Goldy also had a game-tying homer with two outs and two strikes in the 9th in Thursday's opener, although the Braves would win that one in the 10th on a wild pitch of all things. It was the eighth tying or go-ahead homer in D'backs history when down to the team's final strike, and Goldy has three of them.
The Cubs, who two years ago went so far as to semi-intentionally walk Bryce Harper six times, were certainly willing to pitch around him in Game 2 of Saturday's rain-plagued doubleheader. They might should have done it the fourth time too. After drawing three walks, Harper unloaded a two-run homer in the bottom of the 7th to turn a 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 lead that would ultimately hold up when both teams just wanted to get out of there after a 1:31 am restart. It was Harper's fifth career game (all have been this year) with a homer and at least three walks, tying Brad Wilkerson for the most in Nats/Expos history. The team's only other player with more than two such games is Rusty Staub.
And on Tuesday, Lorenzo Cain became the fourth leadoff hitter in Brewers/Pilots history to draw four walks in a game. Rickie Weeks is the previous entry on the list, doing so on August 10, 2007, at Milwaukee. The other two such games were both by Paul Molitor, and nine years apart. He did it April 9, 1982, at Toronto, and again on May 1, 1991, at home against the White Sox.
Get On The Floor
Of all the songs with "walk" in the title, there's a few we still haven't heard played at Every Local Minor League Game. This is one of favorites that is also still safe for work. Intermission!"
Case Of The Mondays
Around here our baseball week begins on Monday, mostly because Sunday night is always a good time to wrap up the weekend series, there's only the one night game to scare us with no-hitters, and a lot of teams are off on Mondays anyway. Except those unofficial "start and end of summer" that are Memorial Day and Labor Day. So we began with a full slate of 15 games on Monday, and because of those pesky time zones, Nicky Delmonico didn't quite hit the first homer of the week. But he did hit the first of three for the White Sox as they defeated Detroit 4-2. It was their first of the leadoff variety against the Tigers since Adam Eaton at Comerica on June 26, 2015, and their first at home since Kenny Lofton took Adam Bernero deep on July 2, 2002.
However, it would be the other two White Sox homers that were more notable after Victor Martinez went yard for Detroit in the top of the 9th. That gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead and brought Shane Greene to the mound for the save. Or not. Daniel Palka, leadoff homer, tie game. Wellington Castillo singles, cueing one of those mound visits that will solve the entire "pace of play" problem if we just limit those. (We're not aware of any team that's hit the limit yet, though subconsciously maybe they are visiting less.) And we don't know exactly what was said during that mound visit, but it probably wasn't "give up a walkoff homer on the first pitch." That would be Matt Davidson with Chicago's first walkoff homer against Detroit since Nick Swisher defeated Joel Zumaya on August 5, 2008.
Combined, Delmonico and Davidson created the first game where the White Sox opened with a homer and closed with a homer since May 15, 1988, when Daryl Boston and Dave Gallager did it against Toronto. And with Palka's tying shot to open the 9th, it was the first time the Sox hit any tying homer in the 9th or later, followed by a walkoff homer later in the same inning, since Pete Ward and Bill Skowron hit them back-to-back against Cleveland on September 4, 1964. For his part, Shane Greene was the first Tigers pitcher to give up multiple homers in an outing, with the last one being a walkoff, since Doug Brocail did it in Kansas City on May 15, 1997.
Start Me Up
Speaking of beginning things, who doesn't like a good leadoff homer? (Unless you're either the starting pitcher or one of those perpetually-late types who always misses the 1st inning.) Both Ronald Acuña and Francisco Lindor continued their assault on that record book this week, the former starting Wednesday's game with his eighth of the season. Acuña was quoted last weekend as thoroughly enjoying his spot at the top of the lineup (and then went 0-for-5 the next day), but it appears he's taken a particuar liking to SunTrust Park. Seven of those eight leadoff homers have been in home games, and that's the most by any player in any single season in major-league history.
Well, at least for now. Lindor mashed one off Danny Duffy to open Tuesday's home game with Kansas City, his fifth at Progressive Field this season. That also set the Indians team record for such a thing, topping Grady Sizemore's four in 2008. And no worries, the Indians went to Toronto for the weekend-- sans their Chief Wahoo patches-- and Lindor opened that series on Thursday with not one, but two leadoff homers. That's not technically possible, but it sounds neat. The first one, as the first batter of the game, gave him seven total for the season, tying Sizemore's team record from that same 2008 season. Nine batters later when the lineup turned over, Lindor "led off" the second time through the order with another solo homer. And if you didn't think Lindor and Sizemore were already joined at the hip in this department, guess who the last Clevelander to do that was, also. It happened on August 25 of that same 2008 campaign in Detroit. Lindor would go on to finish Thursday's 9-4 win with four hits, four RBIs, and that pair of homers. Turns out he also had that line on May 31 against Minnesota, and is the first player-- for any team-- to do that twice in a season out of the leadoff spot.
Also quick shout-outs in this department to Carlos Santana of the Phillies and new Yankee Andrew McCutchen who also both hit leadoff homers this week. Santana's came Tuesday at Marlins Park, starting the wheels turning on a 9-4 victory. In stark contrast to some other teams we've covered, it was only the second leadoff homer for the entire Phillies team this year. The other turns out to have been by Cesar Hernandez on May 2-- at Marlins Park. It's the first time the Phillies have hit two in the same road stadium since Jimmy Rollins did it in back-to-back games in Arizona on May 16 and 17, 2002. And the Phils are the first team since Marlins Park opened in 2012 to hit two there in the same season-- including the Marlins.
McCutchen, meanwhile, headed to Seattle with his new friends for a weekend series with the Mariners, including a homer in that Friday game where Masahiro Tanaka struck out 10. He then opened Saturday with a leadoff homer as the New Yorkers held on for a 4-2 win. Cutch had never homered at Safeco with either the Pirates or the Giants (he'd played only one interleague series there with each team), but he had hit two leadoff homers this season at AT&T Park, both in August, before getting traded. And given that both teams share New York roots, and even shared a stadium for about a decade until Babe Ruth built the Yankees that new place across the Harlem River, no player had ever hit leadoff homers for both of them in the same season. The last player to hit one for both teams at all was Bobby Bonds, who spent his first seven years with the Giants before being traded for Bobby Murcer at the end of the 1974 season. He then hit four leadoff bombs in '75 before going to the Angels for Mickey Rivers.
Finding Nimmo
Brandon Nimmo wasn't in the Mets' starting lineup for Monday's game against the Dodgers, so he couldn't hit his fourth leadoff homer of the season. Instead he would have to find his chance in the top of the 9th inning when he was summonned as a pinch hitter for the pitcher's spot. Oh by the way, it's a 1-1 game and there are two runners on base. Given the theme, you know what happened. Three-run bomb and the Mets held on in B9 for the 4-2 win. Nimmo also recorded a go-ahead pinch-hit homer (actually a 10th-inning walkoff) against the Phillies on July 11, and is the fourth player in Mets history to hit two of them in the 9th or later in the same season. The previous was current Long Island Duck Jordany Valdespin (whom we saw play in person this week) in 2012; the others are Chris Jones in 1995 and Marv Throneberry in the 1962 inaugural season. And while he doesn't fit any of our other categories, an honorable mention to Jacob deGrom, who allowed only two hits (and still didn't get the win) but also had two hits on offense. He's the first Mets pitcher to do that since Tom Glavine against the Rockies on September 29, 2005.
Two other honorable mentions in the home-run department. It's not terribly dramatic when it happens in the 5th inning, but the Mariners would end up beating the Orioles on Wednesday when Nelson Cruz and Denard Span hit back-to-back solo homers to change a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead. It was the first time they'd done that in the 5th or later since Cruz teamed with Robinson Cano against Texas on August 7, 2015, and their third set of those homers against the Orioles. A-Rod and Edgar Martinez hit them in the 6th inning in Baltimore on September 10, 1999, while Ken Griffey and Jay Buhner did it at the Kingdome on April 29, 1994 (bottom 8th).
And despite the Braves not getting a hit against Robbie Ray until the 6th inning on Sunday, they erupted for a six-run 9th that featured three big homers from Ender Inciarte, Lucas Duda, and Johan Camargo. That was enough to pull a win in the series finale with Arizona, 9-5. It was the first time the Braves had cranked out three homers in the same inning in the 9th or later since Keith Lockhart, Javy Lopez, and Walt Weiss did it at County Stadium in Milwaukee on May 25, 1999, for a 5-2 win. And it was the first time they'd hit a solo, a 2-run, and a 3-run homer in any inning since Lopez teamed with Gary Sheffield and Robert Fick against the Mets on May 24, 2003.
The Neverending Story
You might remember the first week of the 2016 campaign when Trevor Story of the Rockies, well, rewrote the books by homering twice in his MLB debut, again in the next three games, and completing his first week in the majors with seven homers, 12 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.468. (Story actually spoiled a good Ramon Laureano note this weekend, more in a minute.) Obviously that wasn't going to last forever, but Story has gone on to collect 82 homers and 249 RBI as he nears the end of his third season, and this week he posted two big games.
On Monday against the Giants, Story cranked a two-run homer and a three-run homer off a still-not-quite-100% Madison Bumgarner; he also reached on a fielder's choice and stole a base. Seung-Hwan Oh ended up surrending two homers in the 8th to lose the lead, which the Rockies eventually got back on a two-run single by Noel Cuevas to win 9-8. Although he didn't factor in Monday's decision, Story is the first Rockies batter with two homers, five driven in, and a stolen base since... Trevor Story did it on July 23, 2016, against the Braves. The only other batter in team history to do it twice is Dante Bichette.
As for those two homers in the 8th, they were both of the pinch-hit variety, by Alen Hanson to tie and Chris Shaw for the lead. The Giants hadn't gone for multiple pinch-hit homers in the same game since Barry Bonds (yes, that's pinch hitter Barry Bonds) and Shawon Dunston also went back-to-back in Montréal on August 23, 2001. (Bonds, by the way, had four pinch-hit homers but batted .195 as a PH; a full two-thirds of his PH appearances were in either in his early days with Pittsburgh or after he turned 40.)
Because of the Giants eventually tying the game, Bumgarner escaped the loss despite allowing seven runs and three homers (DJ LeMahieu also went yard). No Giants pitcher had pulled that off since... Madison Bumgarner, on August 25, 2010, against the Reds. Since the move to the west coast in 1958, only two other Giants have done it twice; they are Kirk Rueter in the '90s and Juan Marichal in the days where pitchers threw complete games no matter what.
The Giants, however, weren't done giving up home runs this week, and Story also wasn't done hitting them. Forward to Wednesday's series finale when the Giants got an early run but Story hit a solo shot to tie it in the bottom of the 1st. Giants get two more runs, up comes Story in the 4th. Tying homer number two. Still 3-3 in the 6th, well, if nobody else can give us the lead for good, I guess I have to. Third solo homer and eventually a 5-3 Rockies win. Also, you may have seen a little something about how far those homers went.
It was the 17th three-homer game in Rockies history, but the third where all were solo shots, and the third where all of them came by the 6th inning (basically guaranteeing a shot at 4 HR). The others in the first category are Charlie Blackmon (2016) and Larry Walker (1997); while the 6th-inning club features Nolan Arenado (last July) and Jason Giambi (2011). It was also the first of those 17 games where all three homers tied or took the lead, and the first where all three homers were off the same pitcher. For his part, Andrew Suarez became just the second pitcher in Giants history to allow three homers to the same batter in the same game. The other player on the wrong side of that was Sal Maglie, who gave them up to the Cubs' Andy Pafko on August 2, 1950-- and still won because, well, complete games.
And that Ramon Laureano note we mentioned? That happened on Friday when the 24-year-old Athletics phenom led off their win over Texas with a home run and then went deep again in the 6th. That did make him the first Oaklander to do that (leadoff HR + second HR later) since Mark Kotsay against the Red Sox on September 6, 2004. But Laureano has only played 29 games in the majors, and had multiple homers in two of them (August 20, also against Texas). That broke the Athletics record for such a thing; Jose Canseco needed 42 games to get his second multi-homer game, and Mark McGwire needed 43. So of course we wondered if he was anywhere close to the major-league record for such a thing, and nope. Trevor Story by a mile.
And now you know the rest of the Story.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Mike Trout, Saturday: First player (including White Soxes) to have a 5-hit, 2-homer game at the current Comiskey Park. Last at the old place was only Joe DiMaggio on May 20, 1948.
⚾ Hyun-Jin Ryu, Wednesday: Second time in three starts (Aug 26 vs SD) that he gave up 11 hits but also struck out at least eight. Last Dodgers pitcher to do it twice in same season was Dazzy Vance in 1931.
⚾ Teoscar Hernandez, Sunday: First Blue Jays batter with two extra-base hits, a homer, and three RBIs in a game he didn't start since Jacob Brumfield against Minnesota on August 12, 1997.
⚾ Alex Bregman, Tuesday: First Astros batter with three doubles in a game since... Alex Bregman on June 26 against Toronto. Only other Astros to do it twice in a season are Chris Burke (2006) and Cesar Cedeño (1977).
⚾ Brewers, Fri-Sun: First team in live-ball era to have six or fewer hits in three consecutive games but still score at least four runs in each game.
⚾ Austin Barnes & Yasmani Grandal, Tuesday: First time two Dodgers catchers had multiple RBIs in same game since Mike Piazza and Tom Prince against the Giants on July 10, 1997.
⚾ Trevor Williams, Monday: Eighth start this season of 6+ innings, 0 runs, and ≤ 6 hits allowed. Most for Pirates in a single season in live-ball era (Francisco Liriano 2013 last of several with seven).
⚾ Shohei Ohtani, Wednesday: Second player in Angels history with 4 hits, 4 runs scored, 2 homers, and a stolen base all in same game; other is Leroy Stanton at Baltimore, July 10, 1973.
⚾ Trea Turner, Saturday: Second player in live-ball era with two walks, two stolen bases, two runs scored, and two RBIs in a game-- but no base hits. Other is Ross Youngs of the Giants on June 25, 1921.
⚾ Ehire Adrianza, Friday: Second number-9 hitter in Twins/Senators history with 3 hits and 3 RBI, but 0 extra-base hits and 0 runs scored himself. Other is Marino Pieretti at Detroit on June 29, 1945.
⚾ Danny Duffy, Tuesday: First Royals starter to give up four hits including a home run and not finish the 1st inning since Mark Redman against Detroit, September 23, 2006.
⚾ Royals, Wednesday: First time held to two hits or fewer at Jacobs Field since it opened in 1994. Last such game in Cleveland was May 4, 1989, when John Farrell lost a no-hitter in the 9th.
⚾ Anthony Rizzo, Monday: Seventh career go-ahead homer in the 8th inning or later. Joins Joey Votto as the only visiting players to hit three of them at Miller Park.
⚾ Cardinals, Saturday: First time losing a game via "bounce-off" (game-ending wild pitch) since September 16, 1983, at Philadelphia (Steve Baker to score Mike Schmidt).
⚾ Rowdy Tellez, Wed-Thu: First player in live-ball era to record an extra-base hit in each of his first three career plate appearances.
Did You Know?
Of course, the current Washington Nationals franchise has only been with us for 14 seasons, and the previous two Washington teams-- now the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins-- both existed as AL franchises before interleague play came along. Which means there are still some things that the Cubs hadn't done in Washington in quite a while. Such as, play a doubleheader. Or win an extra-inning game. (They finally got that White House visit out of the way at least.) Both of those happened this weekend when David Bote's 10th-inning double gave them a 6-4 win on Thursday, and then Friday's game was inexplicably started and then cancelled in the 2nd inning.
Washington did have an original National League team (and several predecessors), although they got driven out of the league in 1899 because they were terrible. But that means we get some old newspaper clippings of the last time the Cubs did things. That extra-inning victory? That was their first in Washington since August 27, 1895, when they scored the go-ahead run on what sounds like a "doink" off the right fielder's hands and into the crowd. (Remember, this is likely before fences and before all fielders wore gloves.) And the last time the Cubs got swept in a doubleheader in Washington was on September 7, 1889. It was cloudy that day also, and so only about 1200 people showed up despite the phenomenon that was two games for a single admission price. In the modern era of maximizing gate receipts and TV contracts, "two for one" has come full-circle to pretty much being a novelty attraction these days too.
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