New Season, Who Dis?

Even if you were a hibernating groundhog, it was nearly impossible to avoid stories about another disappointing winter in the free-agent market. Still, though, there was some movement, and with the start of the 2019 season, plenty of faces popped up in new places. In an homage to what basketball teams do early in March, let's punch some tickets for traveling baseballers at the end of March.


SAT→SAN

After missing the end of the 2016 season and all of 2017 for Tommy John surgery, Chris Paddack got as high as double-A San Antonio in his return last year. He probably wasn't expecting to make the big club out of spring training, but darn it, here he is. On Sunday he twirled a gem against the Giants in his MLB debut, allowing just 2 hits and striking out 7 of them. Only one other pitcher has done that in a Padres uniform, Brian Tollberg against the Diamondbacks on June 20, 2000.

The bullpen behind Paddack (can we call it a paddock instead of a bullpen for this purpose?) then blanked San Francisco entirely, leading to the second "1-2-3" linescore in the past 10 years. The Cardinals had one last May. But the Giants hadn't posted exactly 1 run on 2 hits with 3 errors since the final game of the '10 season. That's nineteen ten, against the Phillies.


SAT→SDQ→SAN

Paddack wasn't the only one who got a nonstop trip from San Antonio to San Diego without a layover in El Paso. After eight long seasons without a Fernando Tatis in the majors, Junior arrived on the scene this week after a detour to lead Estrellas Orientales to its first Dominican Winter League championship in 51 years. Tatis, born on the second day of 1999, is the first player from that year to make the majors, and he lines up almost exactly with another 20-year-old Padres phenom-- Roberto Alomar from 1988.

Tatis had two hits in his debut on Thursday, the youngest player to have a multi-hit game in a season opener since Robin Yount did it for the Brewers on April 8, 1975. And he was the youngest San Diego player with any multi-hit game since Alomar did it against the Pirates on April 29, 1988.

However, that game from April 29, 1988, where Alomar also had a double and a stolen base, came up several more times over the weekend. Alomar went on to homer the next day, on the 30th. Tatis was born in early January and is playing in late March. Alomar was born in early February and had his big games in late April. You may see where this is going. When Tatis collected his first extra-base hit on Friday, a double, he was second to Alomar in Padres history-- by two days. When he stole a base on Saturday, he was second to Alomar-- by three days. And when he homered against the Diamondbacks on Monday, he was second to Alomar-- by four days.

And Nick Margevicius didn't even need to take off from San Antonio to get to his major-league debut. He had a short drive down I-15 from Lake Elsinore, where the 2017 draftee had finished last season in high-A. Against the Giants he had the dubious distinction of plunking two batters, just the third pitcher in Padres history to do that in his debut. The others were Cesar Carrillo against the Brewers (2009) and Tim Stauffer versus Cincinnati (2005).


FAT→YYZ

Trent Thornton was drafted by the Astros in 2015 and rose steadily through their system to spend the entire 2018 season at triple-A Fresno. Last November, however, he was the other half of a trade for Aledmys Diaz and was on his way from the Fresno Air Terminal to Canada. Like our Padres friends, he also made the big-league roster out of spring training and made his MLB debut on Sunday against the Tigers.

Now, it should be said that the Tigers had collected only 2 runs and 11 hits in the first three games with Toronto before erupting for 4-and-10 on Sunday, but that's not to take anything away from Thornton's performance. He gave up just two singles, walked zero, and struck out eight, joining a list of Jays pitchers that includes Roy Halladay (twice), Roger Clemens (1997), Jimmy Key (1989), and Jim Gott (1984). And in the live-ball era, only one other pitcher has recorded a line of ≤ 2 hits, 0 XBH, 0 BB, and 8+ K in his MLB debut; that was when Nick Kingham of the Pirates flirted with a no-hitter last April.


SNA→YYZ

One free agent who did find a home over the winter was Matt Shoemaker of the Angels, now also an honorary Canadian by signing a one-year deal with the Jays. So two days before Thornton's game, Shoemaker also made his team debut, and also shut down the Tigers for seven full innings. He also allowed only two hits, but walked two, so he doesn't qualify for quite the same list as Thornton, but Shoemaker did create his own history. Only one other pitcher had thrown 7+ scoreless innings, with 7+ strikeouts, in his Blue Jays debut-- Mike Flanagan against the Mariners on September 5, 1987, following his trade from the Orioles.

(Trivia time: Who did the Blue Jays release in order to make room for Flanagan?)

Both of those hits that Shoemaker allowed were extra-base knocks (a triple and a double) to Nicholas Castellanos. On Detroit's side, that marked the first game where they had exactly two hits, and both were XBHs by the same player, since Steve Boros did it against the White Sox on July 12, 1962. And the offense's ineptitude also left the door open for Matt Boyd to sneak into this post. Because he struck out 10 Blue Jays and ended up eating the loss. The last Tiger to do that in a road game was Max Scherzer in Chicago on August 30, 2014; and in the live-ball era (where we have complete strikeout counts), no Tigers pitcher had ever fanned double digits and lost in his first start of a season.

Friday's 0-on-2 by Detroit followed another 0-on-2 in Thursday's opener-- but by Toronto. It's the first time in the "Baseball Reference era" (1908) that two teams have traded that line in their first two games of a season. The 1953 White Sox were on both sides of it, but their first game was against Cleveland, and thanks to an experimental schedule quirk (possibly designed to make every team's home opener as early as possible), their second was two days later against St Louis.

(Trivia answer: Phil Niekro.)


IAH→TPA

After two successful years in Houston, including his first 200-K season last year, Charlie Morton was ticketed for the Rays right before Christmas. As it turns out, the rest of the Astros were ticketed for St Petersburg in the first series of 2019, meaning Morton would make his Rays debut against his former mates.

The change of venue didn't seem to upset Morton, who struck out eight Astros en route to a 4-2 victory on Friday. In so doing, he became the fourth pitcher to fan 8+ in his Rays debut; the others were Nate Karns (2014), Wade Davis (2009), and Geremi Gonzalez (2003).

And as for former teammates, Gerrit Cole, who stayed with the Astros after winning $13.5 million in arbitration in February, began earning it by striking out 10 Rays. A three-run 3rd cost him the decision, however, when the Astros offense couldn't get started against Morton. That gave him the "honor" of being the first pitcher in Astros history to record double-digit strikeouts in his season debut and lose.


YNY→PHL

We couldn't decide between New York's many airports (although LaGuardia clearly is Mets territory), and then we gave up since this one's pointless anyway. Take the train. That's Amtrak's code for Yonkers up above.

After all those years with the Pirates, Andrew McCutchen was finally back in Pennsylvania on Thursday. And if he didn't already have a friend there, he probably made a few. In what was not just his first plate appearance with the Phillies, but the team's first plate appearance of the entire season, Cutch went yard and they were on their way to their first 4-0 start since (really) 1915. Only two other Phillies have ever homered as the team's first batter of a season: Cesar Hernandez in 2017 and Heinie Mueller (off our old buddy Van Lingle Mungo) in 1938. Rhys Hoskins added a grand slam later in the contest, also just the third of those in a Phillies opener. Jimmy Rollins hit one in 2014, as did Placido Polanco in Washington in 2010.

Speaking of the Mets, Robinson Cano hit a 1st-inning homer in their opener on Thursday, his first plate appearance in orange and blue since being traded from the Mariners for Jay Bruce in December. The last player to homer in his first PA as a Met was Mike Jacobs, also against the Nationals, on August 21, 2005.


EWR→MIA

This time we did have to enlist a flying machine. Because who doesn't want to head to Florida in March? After three seasons in New York (and a brief visit to Milwaukee), Neil Walker was off to the Marlins after settling for $2 million in the free-agent market. He fit in well, launching a pinch-hit homer in the 8th inning against the Rockies, although Miami was down 5 at the time and it didn't help much. He joins a great list of Marlins to homer in their first PA with the team; it includes Jeremy Hermida (2005), Shawn Estes (2004), the great Hee-Seop Choi (2004), Moises Alou (1997), Terry Pendleton (1995), and a backup catcher named Mitch Lyden. In the Marlins' inaugural season, Lyden was put into two games in June to give Benito Santiago a couple of off-days; coincidentelly (or not), this happened just after Lyden's father-in-law called into manager Rene Lachemann's weekly radio show. Lyden got only four more plate appearances during a September callup and was never in the majors again. The last info we could find suggests he's now a Broward County police officer.

But back to Neil Walker, his pinch-hit shot, unfortunately, was not the Marlins' first homer of the season so we could NOT watch the love-it-or-hate-it sculpture go off. (It's still there, it's just outside now.) That actually belonged to JT Riddle, who plated the Marlins' first run of the year with his own pinch-hit homer in the 6th. They are the second set of Marlins teammates with pinch-hit homers in the same game; Joe Borchard and Wes Helms did it in Baltimore on June 22, 2006.


We couldn't decide whether you'd rather reminisce about the home-run sculpture or have some mood music for our trip to Tokyo. You decide. Intermission!


BWI→SEA→NRT

Tim Beckham was the number-one pick in the 2008 draft, and he's made a lot of stops since then. Every level of the Rays system, from Princeton, W.Va., to Durham, N.C., a couple visits to the Arizona Fall League, up and down between the Rays and Durham for a few years, then traded to Baltimore, then a few rehab games in their system last year, then finally signed this winter with the Mariners as a free agent. So not only does he have to head to Seattle, but all the Mariners have to head to Japan for the first game of the season.

Maybe because of all those stops, Beckham showed no signs of jet lag. In the Mariners' 9-7 win over Oakland in the season opener, Beckham collected three hits and three runs scored, one of each on a homer, while batting eighth. Yuniesky Betancourt, on August 17, 2005, was the last Mariner to have 3-and-3 while batting eighth, though Ryon Healy did it batting ninth last April. More notably, Beckham is the second player in Mariners history with a 3-and-3 game in a season opener (any spot in order). Kevin Mitchell did it against Texas at the Kingdome on April 6, 1992.

Domingo Santana hit a grand slam in that opener in Japan and would go on to hit two more homers in Seattle's first two games after returning stateside. That put him on a list with Robinson Cano (2016), Mike Morse (2013), Ken Griffey Jr. (twice), and Jim Presley (1985) as the only Mariners to homer in three out of the team's first four games of a season.


PHX→STL

Opening Day is always full of notes and fun facts, but the biggest performance of the season's first weekend came in the Cardinals' second game on Friday. That's when "new guy" Paul Goldschmidt, after spending his entire 10-year career in the Diamondbacks' system and largely being the face of the franchise, put on Cardinal red (is that redundant) and proceeded to mash three homers out of Miller Park.

According to Elias, he's the first player in major-league history to have a 3-HR game in either of his first two appearances for a new team. He's also the first Cardinal ever to have a 3-HR game against Milwaukee (that includes the Braves and several pre-1902 Brewers incarnations). And combined with Matt Carpenter's 3-HR, 7-RBI game in Chicago last July (where the Cubs ended up using three position players on the mound), it's the first time in team history that two Cardinals have had three-homer games within a year of each other.

By doing it in the team's second game, Carpenter also shattered the Cardinals record for the earliest into a season that any player had posted a three-homer game. In 2006, Albert Pujols did it on April 16 against Cincinnati-- in game number 12. (Mark McGwire in Game 13 and Stan Musial in Game 15 follow on that list.) Pujols is also the only other Cardinal to have any 4-hit, 5-RBI game at Miller Park, doing so on September 1, 2011.

Goldy would go on to hit another dinger on Sunday, giving him four in the team's first four games. Only McGwire in 1998 and Lou Brock in 1967 had achieved that in Cardinals history.



There's No Place Like Home(r)

We did save a little section of this post for people who weren't on the move this winter. After their opening trek to Japan for two games, the Mariners returned home to Safecohhhh-- wait, somebody changed the signs. What's going on? Well, we're still at the corner of Edgar & Dave, so this seems like a good place to mash some home runs.

In Thursday's home opener, the Mariners hit five of them en route to a 12-4 victory over the Red Sox. It had been over 2½ seasons since Seattle had a 5-HR game as a team (July 2, 2016, vs Orioles), which doesn't sound like much until you realize that every team except the Giants and Marlins has done it since then. The Mariners' only other 5-HR home game against Boston was July 9, 1987, at the Kingdome, when Phil Bradley and Alvin Davis chipped in two each.

The 12 runs were the most the Mariners had ever scored in their home opener (as distinguished from "an opener at home"; the former can easily be four, seven, ten games into a season if they start on the road). Their previous high was 10 against the Rangers in 1992-- and they lost that game.

And thanks to the layoff of five, six, maybe seven days depending on how time-shifted everyone was, Marco Gonzales pitched again in the home opener after also pitching in the season opener in Tokyo. He got the win in both, becoming the first pitcher in Mariners history (starter or reliever) to get two wins in the team's first three games. The last to do it for any team was Victor Zambrano in 2004 when the Rays made the same journey to the Far East.


Ravine-ous

And you didn't really think we'd put a lid on the first weekend of 2019 without a mention of the Dodgers/D'backs series, did you? Try about five mentions. The opener on Thursday might as well have been promoted as "baseball giveaway night" because no less than 10 lucky fans in the outfield got them. (Unless Zack Hample was there, then all bets are off.) It was the first game in Dodger Stadium history (1962, including the Angels years) where 10 dingers were hit, topping a pair of games with nine. One of those was a 21-5 jamboree with Milwaukee last August, and the other was July 20, 2003 against the Cardinals. The Dodgers hit eight of the 10 by themselves, just the second time they've ever done that (in L.A. or Brooklyn). Their other 8-HR game is affectionately known as The Shawn Green Game; it's the contest in Milwaukee on May 23, 2002, where he hit four of them by himself.

Enrique Hernandez and Joc Pederson each hit two longballs in the opener, increasing the number of Dodgers who had ever done that by 50%. Yasmani Grandal (2017), Raul Mondesi (1995 and again in 1999) and Roy Campanella (1954) had been the entire list until now. And by giving up four taters each, Zack Greinke and Matt Koch earned their own special place in MLB history. On June 18, 2006, Mark Prior and Roberto Novoa of the Cubs surrendered 4 HR each against Detroit, heretofore the only teammates ever to do it in the same game.

Probably could've saved a few homers, heck, even one, for Friday night. When we got an early indication of how "pace of play" is going this year. It took almost 2½ hours to get to the 6th inning, and tee-hee, little did we know at the time that we weren't even halfway through the game yet. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the 10th but didn't score, putting us over 4½ hours. A replay, an inning break, another replay, and a delay while home-plate umpire Scott Barry left the game after taking a foul ball to the mask. Long-enough story short, Carson Kelly-- who was also part of that Paul Goldschmidt/Jay Bruce trade we mentioned above-- finally hits the first go-ahead extra-inning pinch-hit double in D'backs history in the 13th, and at 1:15 am, we exactly tie for the second-latest finish ever to a game at Dodger Stadium. A 4-3, 16th-inning walkoff against the Phillies on September 19, 1964, is also recorded as ending at 1:15; while the all-time winner is a fairly famous 19-inning affair with the Mets on May 24, 1973, in which Manny Mota went 0-for-9 and the Mets strangely erupted for four runs in the 19th. That one clocked in at 1:47 am, and was played on a Thursday night, so you know some of those people were sitting in rush-hour traffic on the way home.

Happily both teams said on Saturday, yeah, let's not do that again. Jarrod Dyson and Joc Pederson both began the game with homers for their respective teams, incredibly the first game in Dodger Stadium history (regular or postseason, and including the Angels years) where both teams hit a leadoff home run. By the time we were done we had our first 18-5 score of the year, and Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger had become the first Dodger teammates to each have 5 RBI in a home game since... eh, two guys you've never heard of. Duke Snider and Gil Hodges did it at Ebbets Field on September 19, 1950. Pederson, for his part, reached base six times and scored four, the first Dodgers leadoff hitter to do that since Johnny Frederick in Philadelphia on May 18, 1929. And position player John Ryan Murphy finally ended up pitching the 8th for Arizona, coughing up seven (!) runs in the process. No position player for any team had been left out there long enough to allow eight hits and seven earned since Mariners 3B Manny Castillo did it against the Jays on June 26, 1993.

In Sunday's finale Luke Weaver would become the second D'backs pitcher ever to homer at Dodger Stadium. Miguel Batista took Kaz Ishii deep on June 2, 2002. And if you think that might hint at something about D'backs pitchers hitting home runs, well, then you're aware we got a couple days behind on writing this post. For [Paul Harvey voice] the rest of the story you will just have to wait for the next installment. It's a Kernels cliffhanger!


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Derek Dietrich, Thursday: First 3- or 4-run, go-ahead, pinch-hit homer for Reds since Ryan Hanigan against Milwaukee on September 1, 2010. Braves and Indians are the only teams to have gone longer without one.

⚾ Luke Voit, Thursday: Third cleanup hitter in Yankees history with 4 RBI in a season opener. Others are only A-Rod (2006) and Yogi (1956).

⚾ Max Scherzer, Thursday: First pitcher in Nationals history to strike out 12 in a game where the team scored 0 runs. Last to do it for Expos was Javier Vazquez at Cubs, April 9, 2003.

⚾ Austin Meadows, Thursday: Second player ever to homer as the Rays' first batter of a season. Gerald Williams hit one at the Metrodome on April 3, 2000.

⚾ Maikel Franco, Thu-Sat: Second player in Phillies history to have 3+ RBI in both of the team's first two games of a season. Other is Chuck Klein in 1931.

⚾ Jeimer Candelario, Sunday: First Tigers leadoff batter with 5 hits but 0 runs scored since Curtis Granderson in Anaheim, September 18, 2005.

⚾ Carlos Santana, Sunday: First Clevelander with 4 hits and 3 RBI, but 0 runs scored himself, since Omar Vizquel against the Mariners on August 5, 2001.

⚾ Christian Yelich, Thu-Sun: Sixth player in MLB history to homer in team's first four games of a season. Trevor Story (2016), Chris Davis (2013), Nelson Cruz (2011), Mark McGwire (1998), Willie Mays (1971).

⚾ Rangers, Sunday: Won game on a "bounce-off" (walk-off wild pitch) for first time since May 29, 1999, when Minnesota's Mike Trombley uncorked one to score A-Rod.