Anytime you hear about a high-scoring Rockies game, there's generally an assumption that it must be in Denver because of the altitude and the balls flying farther and yadda yadda. You don't figure it's going to be done at 600 feet in a ballpark just a few miles from a Great Lake.
Nope, not Wrigley. Not even Detroit or Cleveland. This week the Rockies made a visit to Milwaukee and, after losing the first two games of the series 5-1 and 4-3, opened May by hanging an 11-spot on the Brewers, a game in which Nolan Arenado joined Garrett Atkins (July 9, 2008) as the only Colorado batters with a multi-homer game in Wisconsin. Arenado also became the first Rockies player with a 1st-inning homer and a 9th-inning homer in the same game since Carlos Gonzalez did it in San Diego on June 5, 2016.
But then that urge to repeat took over. In Thursday's finale the Rox dropped 11 more runs, claiming that game 11-6 behind homers from Arenado (again), David Dahl, and Raimel Tapia. They became the fourth trio in Rockies history to each have 3 hits, including a home run, in a road game; Clint Barmes, Matt Holliday, and Garrett Atkins (at Arizona, April 13, 2008) were the previous bunch. Mark Reynolds got things started early with a three-run double in the 1st inning, the fourth in Rox history in a road game. Kevin Kouzmanoff (2011) and Jason Giambi (2010) had the previous two, both at Dodger Stadium; and Dante Bichette hit one in St Louis on May 25, 1998.
All told, it was just the third time in Rockies history where they had scored 11+ runs in consecutive games, both on the road. And the other two both involved one of those other ballparks by the lake-- Wrigley Field. They did it May 4 and 5, 1999, both against the Cubs, and then again on August 9 (at Cubs) and 10 (at Reds) of 2001. The Brewers had only allowed 11+ runs to the same opponent in consecutive home games once before since Miller Park opened, against the Braves on August 4 and 5, 2001.
And on Friday the Rockies returned home to their highly-elevated perch in Coors Field to host the Diamondbacks in what was not supposed to be a 10-9 slugfest. But as Coors Field does, here we go. Adam Jones and Ketel Marte both collected three hits, three runs scored, and a home run, as Arizona held off Colorado 10-9. Marte was the fourth D'backs batter with multiple multi-run homers in a game at Coors Field; Luis Gonzalez is two of the others (2001 & 2003), and Jay Bell (2000) is the other. And when the Rockies scored three runs in the bottom of the 9th, plus had Nolan Arenado on third and David Dahl on second with 1 out, well, this might get interesting.
Ian Desmond, five-pitch swinging strikeout. Chris Iannetta, just recalled from his minor-league rehab in Hartford (which we attended) the day before, three-pitch swinging strikeout. It was the second time in team history that the Rockies had ended a game with back-to-back strikeouts when the tying and winning runs were both in scoring position. The other occurrence was July 19, 2006, in Pittsburgh, when Matt Holliday and Ryan Shealy were the strikeout victims against Mike Gonzalez.
Eleventy Billion
The number 11 showed up a couple other times this week, notably on Tuesday when the Pirates visited the Texas Rangers for just the fifth time ever. And while there had been one extra-inning game between them (a 10th-inning walkoff by Hank Blalock in their very first game in 2004), the teams had never gotten to an 11th frame before, either in Arlington or in Pittsburgh. Which would suddenly become necessary when Jose Leclerc, trying to protect a 3-0 lead in the 9th, gave up three straight hits to start the inning, and then Josh Bell's two-out double not only tied the game but sent it to extras when Bell was nailed at third thinking the throw would go home, but Adam Frazier scored just before Bell was tagged.
Two frames later, rookie Bryan Reynolds, playing in just his eighth major-league game, connected for his first major-league homer to start the top of the 11th and give the Pirates a 4-3 lead. Three batters later, Starling Marte homered as well, a two-run shot that would end up being the winning runs when Joey Gallo also homered to lead off the bottom of the 11th. The Pirates had not hit multiple homers in an inning numbered 11 or higher since Roberto Clemente and Bob Bailey went deep at Candlestick Park on September 19, 1966. And Gallo became the fourth player in franchise history to homer in the 11th or later of a home game and have it not be a walkoff. Dean Palmer hit two such homers, in April 1995 and again in September 1996, while Paul Casanova of the Senators re-tied a game in Detroit in 1966 after the Tigers had taken the lead in their half. Tuesday's game was also the third game at the current Arlington ballpark where three homers were hit in the 11th or later, and the six homers in those other games... were all by Kansas City Royals. Melky Cabrera, Eric Hosmer, and Brayan Peña did it in a 14th-inning eruption in 2011, while Carlos Beltran, Mike Sweeney, and Joe Randa famously went back-to-back-to-back in the 11th in 2002.
11 was not enough for the Rangers on Friday, however. That's how many innings they played against their new visitors from Toronto, without either team scoring. At all. Zero-zero tie. Only one half-inning-- and that was B10 thanks to two intentional walks-- lasted more than five batters, and to spin a phrase, the question was not when someone might score, but if. Eventually the Rangers put Ariel Jurado on the mound for the 12th, and he gave up two singles to start the inning. It's the next play that gets weird. Backup catcher Danny Jansen lays down what should be a sacrifice bunt, but Jurado spins too far while trying to go to third and a run scores-- what would be the only run of the game and hold up in the bottom of the 12th for a 1-0 win.
Toronto had won only two other 1-0 games in their history that lasted 12 innings (none was longer), and those were both decided by solo homers. Chris Colabello went deep at Tropicana Field on June 24, 2015; and Jessie Barfield homered at Fenway on September 26, 1986. The error made the run unearned, also making Friday the third game in Rangers/Senators history where they threw 12 complete innings, did not allow an earned run, and still lost. On July 14, 1972, they lost a 2-0 game to Cleveland after making two errors in the top of the 14th; and back in Washington, they committed five total errors in losing to those pesky Indians again, 2-1 in 16 innings. Texas finished Friday's contest with only four hits, their fewest in a game of 12+ innings since April 10, 1980, against the Yankees. And that one happened to be a 1-0 win; the fourth hit was a leadoff single in the bottom of the 12th and then Goose Gossage committed a bounce-off.
Eight Is (Also Not) Enough...
In our continuing quest to bring you as many 11's as possible, we'll spot you that as being the number of runs the Reds scored against San Francisco on Friday. They lost. Despite scoring 3 in the 1st and 5 in the 3rd, at one point leading by 8 runs, the Giants fought all the way back with 10 runs of their own before Stephen Vogt's solo homer tied the game (at 11!) in the top of the 9th. Now, nobody really needs an 11-11 tie after 9 innings, but at least you feel confident that someone is going to score soon. Unlike, say, a 2-2 tie where nobody gets a runner to second after the 4th (wait for it). Sure enough, it would be the 11th inning when Evan Longoria led off with a solo homer to change that Giants score to 12. And when Will Smith got jiggy with it and retired the side in B11, San Francisco had handed Cincinnati its first loss after leading by 8+ at any point since the Blue Jays compiled an 8-run B2 and went on to win 14-9 on June 20, 2014. The Reds had only scored 11+ and lost once in the current century; that was barely 8 months ago, against the Brewers on August 29 of last season.
For his part, Vogt picked a really great time to conclude his rehab from shoulder surgery and rejoin the team. Because Friday actually marked his debut with San Francisco. Only two other players had ever had 3 hits, a home run, and 3 RBIs in their first game with the Giants; they were Terrell Lowery in 2000 and Mark Lewis in 1997. Vogt also joined Vic Harris (1978) and Dave Rader (1973) as the only Giants in the live-ball era to have 3 hits and 3 runs scored in a game they didn't start.
For Cincinnati, Derek Dietrich drove in six runs on a pair of three-run homers, and that specific combo had never been done in Reds history. Bo Diaz (1987), Ken Griffey (1978), George Crowe (1957), and Harry Heilman (1930) all had 6 RBI in a loss, but none of them had multiple three-run homers along the way.
In the series finale on Sunday, the Reds did a variation on the three-run homer. After Joey Votto started the game with a single, Eugenio Suarez went yard for a 2-0 lead. Jeff Samardzija then threw one pitch to Jesse Winker. Homer to center. Samardzija's first pitch to Derek Dietrich... repeat. Homer to right. The Reds had already gone back-to-back-to-back once before this year (April 9 vs Marlins), but in the population of pitch-count data, which is essentially complete to 1988, Sunday was the first occurrence of the Reds going yard on three straight pitches.
...But One Is
You may already realize that baseball is a funny game. You can score 11 runs one day and lose, you can score 1 run another day and win. And wouldn't you know that happened to the Cincinnati Reds multiple times this week. Before Friday's escapade against the Giants, the Reds visited the Mets for a four-game midweek series, and if you had tickets for both Wednesday and Thursday at Citi Field, you got to see a whopping 2 runs score. One for each team. And yet you got two full nine-inning games. Because both of them ended 1-0, just in opposite directions.
That Wednesday game was largely a pitching battle between "the De's"-- Jacob deGrom and Anthony DeSclafani-- in which the lone run wasn't scored until the top of the 9th when Jose Iglesias homered off Mets closer Edwin Diaz. The Reds hadn't won any 1-0 game via solo homer since Jay Bruce went deep in St Louis on July 29, 2015, and hadn't done it in the 9th inning since Paul O'Neill (remember he played 5½ years in Cincinnati?) walked off against the Cardinals on May 18, 1990.
Thursday's getaway game was another ho-hum affair in which neither team collected more than 4 hits and the whole thing was over with in 2 hours 10 minutes. Final score? That's 1-0 again. Who has the 1? Well, this time it's the Mets, meaning they and the Reds traded 1-0 scores in consecutive games with each other. The last time the Reds did that was the beginning of the 2014 season, when their first two games were 1-0 (or 0-1) against the Cardinals. The Mets, however, had only done it twice before in their history, and both sets were in August 1973. On the 8th and 9th they swapped 1-0 games at Dodger Stadium, and back at Shea, they did it against the Giants on the 24th and 25th.
We might have buried the lead here (we do this a lot, it's a literary device). Because you might know where that lone Mets run came from. It's a home run by Noah Syndergaard-- who, you may have heard, is a pitcher. In their 58-season history the Mets had never before scored exactly 1 run in a game and had it come on a pitcher's solo homer. Obviously, then, it was also the team's first-ever 1-0 win on a homer by a pitcher.
But remember the "0" piece of that score. Syndergaard not only held the Reds scoreless, he did so for the entire game. He threw a 9-inning shutout on 104 pitches, allowing just 4 hits and striking out 10. No Mets pitcher had thrown an indvidual shutout with at least 9 strikeouts since R.A. Dickey did it against the Orioles on June 18, 2012. The only other Mets pitcher to throw an SHO-4 (or better) with 10 strikeouts against the Reds was Dwight Gooden on April 14, 1985. And only three pitchers in Mets history have thrown any individual ("complete-game") shutout and homered in it: Johan Santana did it, also against the Reds, on July 6, 2010; and Pete Falcone did it in Philadelphia on September 29, 1981.
Matching Sox
Chicago and Boston played a four-game series this weekend, and don't you hate it when you mix up White Sox and Red Sox and they both "run" and somehow at the end you have an odd number of Sox. In Thursday's opener, we were stuck with 4 red and 3 white going to the 9th inning before Nicky Delmonico not only found the eighth Sock, he let us borrow an additional pair so we didn't have to go through any, um, extra cycles. Of course this is a reference to his three-run walkoff homer to give Chicago a 6-4 win, the team's first against those other Sawx since Greg Walker went deep off Bob Stanley on August 26, 1985. The last Sox-over-Sawx walkoff homer of the multi-run variety was Pat Kelly off Marty Pattin on August 20, 1972.
Delmonico had pinch-hit for Ryan Cordell in the 7th for no special reason and then stayed in to hit the walkoff in his second plate appearance. That made him just the fourth White Sock in the live-ball era to hit a 3- or 4-run walkoff homer in a game he didn't start. Nick Swisher was the previous one on the list, doing so August 5, 2008, against the Tigers; the others were Lyle Mouton in 1996 and pinch-hitter Dick Allen in 1972.
But wait, stop us if you've heard this one. It's about repeating. And while it wasn't a matchup of Sox on Wednesday, the second game of Chicago's doubleheader with the Orioles also ended on a multi-run walkoff, this one a 2-out bases-loaded single by Yonder Alonso.
Remember Greg Walker's homer on August 26, 1985? Exactly a month prior, on July 26, you will find the last time the Sox walked off against the Orioles when trailing; that was a Carlton Fisk two-run triple. And in the population of play-by-play data at the great Baseball Reference Play Index, which covers every potential Sox game back to 1951 and many before that, they've never walked off in consecutive games when trailing in both.
In Saturday's game, however, there was no question that someone left the Red Sox in the washer, because the entire load turned pink. It started innocently enough when Christian Vazquez got Boston's first hit of the game with a two-out single in the 3rd. Then Andrew Benintendi hit a two-out single in the 3rd. Then Mookie Betts hit a two-out double in the 3rd. Then... okay, we'll spare you all ten of them. In a row. Meaning Vazquez actually singled again with two outs in the 3rd and finally put Manny Banuelos out of his misery after nine runs and three homers. Carson Fulmer didn't fare a whole lot better, promptly giving up five more in the 4th.
Six teams in AL history have strung together 10 straight hits in an inning, and the Red Sox are three of them. They were also the first to do it, on June 2, 1901, in their very first season. That also stood as the major-league record all the way until 2010 when the Rockies got 11 against the Cubs at Coors Field. As for the nine-run inning, the Red Sox hadn't done that at Comiskey Park since it was across 35th Street. On July 8, 1973, they hung a "9" under, of all places, a "10", slugging their way to an 11-2 win in extras.
Michael Chavis collected two homers and a double as Boston scored 15 runs for the first time in Chicago since August 30, 1970, a game which remains the last 21-11 score in the majors. Only one other Sawx player has had four hits, three for extra bases, scored three runs, and driven in three runs in a game in Chicago, and that was only Smead Jolley in 1932. Banuelos, meanwhile, was the first White Sox starter since earned runs became official in the AL in 1913 to give up nine of them along with 10 hits and not get through the 3rd inning.
In keeping with the theme, we thought of sending you to some clip that would just loop over and over. Or one that would get stuck in your head and not leave, like, say, the Kars-4-Kids jingle. (Gotcha!) But then you'd never finish the week in strange baseball. So "steel" yourself for the rest of the week's weirdness with this classic. Intermission!
On Strike For 15
Carsten Charles Sabathia has the perfect name for a pitcher, at least if you're a fan of strikeouts. Because his initials-- CCS-- would represent one in MLB's Gameday code (called-called-swing). Instead, however, it was "BFFFS" (ball, three fouls, and a swing) that did in John Ryan Murphy on Tuesday night and made Sabathia the 17th pitcher with 3000 career strikeouts. (Murphy would also be the 3002nd his next time up.) However, along the way Sabathia allowed a solo homer and an RBI single to Wilmer Flores, and when the Yankee offense didn't get going either, Sabathia actually took the loss. He's only the sixth of those 17 pitchers to get the loss in the game where he reached 3000. (The date of Walter Johnson's is disputed, but MLB lists him as doing it in a win.) The other losers (chuckle) are Ferguson Jenkins, Curt Schilling, Tom Seaver, John Smoltz, and the all-time strikeout king, Nolan Ryan.
For what it's worth, Justin Verlander is the next possible member of the club, sitting in the high 2700s. Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez, Zack Greinke, and Cole Hamels are all clustered around 2500. But watch out, they might have competition soon too. Because in a repeat of strikeout milestones, Stephen Strasburg-- whose middle name, James, disqualifies his initials from also being a strikeout sequence-- got to 1500 K's in fewer innings than any pitcher before him. Strasburg's victim was opposing pitcher Dakota Hudson, but with Dakota fanning (see what we did there?) to end the 5th inning on Thursday, he got there having pitched 1272⅓ innings, about two games less than the previous mark held by Chris Sale.
Now if Strasburg can only repeat his first 1500 strikeouts, he'll join CC with 3000.
Double Your Pleasure
The Rays aren't used to getting rained out, mainly because their home is (for now) still in a weather-protected dome in St Petersburg. But around 60 times a year they must visit an opponent who does not have that handy roof, and sure enough, Tuesday's game in Kansas City turned into Wednesday's doubleheader in Kansas City.
The Royals did at least take "double" to the next level, Whit Merrifield leading off the game with one, followed by an Adalberto Mondesi homer and more doubles from Hunter Dozier and Martin Maldonado. And that'll do. No more hits. Three runs in the 1st, that's plenty. Royals win the first game, 3-2, on four hits, none of which was the basic building block that is a single. It was only the fourth time in Royals history that they'd had at least four hits without any being singles, and the first of those four games that they won. Merrifield and Dozier also both stole third following their doubles, the first Royals teammates ever to accomplish both tasks in the 1st inning. And Ryne Stanek, who is usually only destined for one inning anyway, became the first pitcher in Rays history to allow three extra-base hits and two steals while getting three or fewer outs.
A remarkably familiar scene played out just 3½ hours later when Game 2 got underway. Hey look, it's a Whit Merrifield leadoff double. Haven't seen that before. In fact, the last time you saw it in the majors (the same player leading off both games of a DH with a double) was by Scott Podsednik of the White Sox on August 30, 2005. Then let's have Jorge Soler single to score Merrifield, and Kelvin Gutierrez homer for a quick 3-0 lead. We haven't done that since about 12:30. And no team in the majors had done it (scored 3+ runs in both 1st innings of a DH) since the Yankees against the Red Sox on July 7, 2012. The last time the Royals pulled it off was May 1, 1994, against Milwaukee.
The extra-base hits kept coming on Thursday, although this time the Royals could not repeat them in quick enough succession to score any runs. They legged out two triples and two doubles, all off Charlie Morton, but none of those four runners scored and they lost 3-1. By "those four runners" we mean "those two runners". Because both doubles were by Hunter Dozier, and both triples were by our buddy Whit Merrifield again (for whom doubles were apparently getting too boring). He's only the sixth player in Royals history to have two triples in a loss; this eclectic list includes Johnny Damon (2000), Carlos Beltran (1998), Willie Wilson (1984), and of course George Brett (1979). And between Merrifield and Dozier, it was the fifth time in team history that one player had two triples and another had two doubles in the same. The last pair to pull that off was Vince Coleman and Mike Macfarlane against the Yankees on May 29, 1994.
And if you'd like to have the "15" theme repeated again, the Royals have that covered as well. On Saturday they were off at Comerica Park and by the 3rd inning, the only question was which position player was going to pitch for Detroit. (The answer turned out to be none, oddly.) They had racked up a 7-0 lead before the Tigers even got a hit, which only mushroomed into a 15-3 win when Drew VerHagen gave up six unnecessary runs in the 8th. It's the 21st time in Royals history that they've scored 15+ in a road game, and a full third of those have been in Detroit. They've done it three times at Comerica, after four at Tiger Stadium before it, and the only other parks where they've even done it twice are in Anaheim and Baltimore.
It was the first time in their history that the Royals had collected 19 hits and 10 walks in a game, whether it went extras or not. Kelvin Gutierrez had four of those hits, plus a stolen base, shattering the record for the earliest into an MLB career a Kansas City player had ever done that. Gutierrez did it in his eighth game, only one-fourth of the way to the old mark set by Bo Jackson in 1987 and matched by Carlos Beltran in 1999. Adalberto Mondesi kept the extra-base theme going by hitting a triple and a double; tacking on his 3 runs scored and 3 RBIs, he joined Billy Butler (August 9, 2012, at Baltimore) as the only Royals this century with that batting line.
And between VerHagen and starter Tyson Ross, it was only the second time in the live-ball era that multiple Tigers pitchers in the same game had given up 7+ hits and 5+ runs while getting 4 or fewer outs. The others were Steve Gromek and Earl Harrist at Boston on June 18, 1953.
Saved By Zero
Now meanwhile, back in Rays land, they headed from Kauffman Stadium to Camden Yards for a weekend series after enduring the earlier pounding by the Royals. And in another hitter-friendly ballpark, Tyler Glasnow managed to shut down the Orioles on Friday, throwing seven scoreless innings with three hits allowed, and running his record to 6-0. Only three other Rays pitchers have begun a season 6-0 or better with all of those decisions being in starts: Matt Moore in 2013, Jeff Niemann in 2010, and James Shields in 2007. Mike Zunino provided three runs with a 4th-inning homer; he joined Jose Lobaton (2012), Jared Sandberg (2003), and Toby Hall (2003) as the only Tampa Bay batters to hit a 3- or 4-run homer at Camden Yards.
Since we're about repeating, the two teams met again on Saturday with Dylan Bundy on the hill for Baltimore, and he said, hmm, let me try this "7 shutout innings" thing too. Bundy earned his first win of the 2019 season by allowing only three hits while the offense scrounged together three runs off Yonny Chirinos. For the fourth pick in the 2011 draft (Bundy, not Chirinos), it was the sixth time he'd thrown 7+ scoreless innings while allowing no more than 3 hits; the only other Orioles this century to do that six times are Erik Bedard and Ubaldo Jimenez.
So, like the Mets and Reds earlier, check out the alternating linescores. On Friday the Rays held the Orioles to 0 runs on 5 hits. On Saturday the Orioles held the Rays to 0 runs on 3 hits. In the 22-season history of Rays baseball, it's the first time they've ever thrown a 5-hit (or fewer) shutout one day, and then received a similar shutout the next day from the same opponent. They have done it three times in reverse (i.e., get shut out first and then get angry and throw one in return), most recently September 26 and 27, 2014, against the Indians.
Lake Effect
And what's the sense in repeating if we don't end up where we began, back on the "shores" (kind of) of Lake Michigan. Remember that 2-2 tie where nobody got a runner to second after the 4th inning? Here it is.
The Brewers grabbed an early 2-1 lead on the Mets on Saturday when Mike Moustakas doubled in the bottom of the 3rd. And true to form, nobody got a runner to second for the next five innings. Which is fine because the game's still 2-1 and Milwaukee just has to hold the lead. Enter Pete Alonso. Who did at least touch second base... during his home-run trot in the top of the 9th. And now we wait. Ryan Braun gets stranded at second in the bottom half, nobody else touches second for three more innings, and sure, B13 looks promising until Eric Thames, possibly missing a double-steal sign, gets picked off first base. (Hernan Perez is on second. Where is Thames gonna go?) Braun doubles again in the 14th but two strikeouts. In the 15th it's Perez's turned to get picked off the base paths, in his case trying to take second on a wild pitch. The Brewers waste another Braun double in the 17th. Finally in the top of the 18th we have a breakthrough. Adeiny Hechavarria singles, steals second, and Jeff McNeil succeeds in driving in the go-ahead run, although fails at stretching it into a double that would have continued the inning. He was actually lucky there were two outs and Hechavarria went on contact, or else the run probably wouldn't have counted.
Now our 6:00 pm start, which is approaching 11:30, is in the hands of Chris Flexen who gave up that Braun double to start the 17th. Five-pitch walk to Eric Thames. Five-pitch walk to Yasmani Grandal. Mound visit that clearly didn't help, because four-pitch walk to Travis Shaw. And solely because "Mets gonna Met", who's up again with one out and the bases loaded but Ryan Braun. Two-run walkoff single which, oh yeah, thanks to all those wasted doubles, turns out to be his sixth hit of the game. The teams combined to score three runs in the 18th after scoring only four in the first 17 frames.
The Brewers had only one previous walkoff win in the 18th or later, a Willie Randolph single against the White Sox on May 1, 1991. The Mets had two walkoff losses, both to Houston-- one in 1979 on a Craig Reynolds single, and the other in a fairly-famous 24-inning game in 1968, the longest 1-0 game in MLB history. That was won on a throwing error by Mets shortstop Al Weis because, um, 24th inning.
As for the Mets scoring in their half, McNeil's go-ahead hit was the third-latest by inning in Mets history; Rusty Staub had one in the 19th at Dodger Stadium in 1973, and Ray Knight's double in the top of the 19th ended up being the ultimate resolution to The Rick Camp Game in Atlanta on July 4, 1985. Neither the Mets nor Brewers had been on their respective end of a lead-flipping walkoff after the 14th; Prince Fielder hit a multi-run homer for Milwaukee against the Rockies in 2011, while the Mets famously got walked off by Dante Bichette's multi-run homer in the first-ever game at Coors Field in 1995.
And about Braun repeating his trot to first base six times? Only Christian Yelich (last August), Jean Segura (2013), Kevin Reimer (1993), and John Briggs (1973) had recorded six-hit games in Brewers history. But only seven players (Braun is the eighth) in the live-ball era had made their sixth hit a walkoff. Andrew McCutchen dramatically did it with a home run last April; the others are Johnny Damon (2008 Yankees), Chone Figgins (2007 Angels), Jim Northrup (1969 Tigers), Pete Runnels (1960 Red Sox), Bob Johnson (1934 Athletics), and Hank DeBerry (1929 Dodgers).
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Brad Keller, Monday: First pitcher this season to pull off the "Kernels Trifecta"-- a hit batter, a wild pitch, and a balk in the same game. Last Royals hurler to do it was Jakob Junis on June 23, 2017.
⚾ Spencer Turnbull, Tuesday: While not a trifecta, third Tigers pitcher in live-ball era to throw 3 wild pitches and hit 2 batters. Rick Porcello did it in 2011 and Rip Collins did it in 1923.
⚾ Ryan Dull, Wednesday: Also not a trifecta, but first Oakland reliever to hit a batter, throw a wild pitch, give up a homer, and record 0 strikeouts since Rollie Fingers against Detroit on September 15, 1968.
⚾ Starling Marte, Sunday: Third Pirates batter in live-ball era to hit a walkoff anything when trailing in the 13th or later. Andrew McCutchen homered against the Cardinals on July 11, 2015, while pitcher Emil Yde scored a two-run triple (and also pitched 10 innings!) against the Cubs on June 25, 1924.
⚾ Diamondbacks, Wednesday: First-ever 1-run victory over Yankees in regular season (insert large asterisk about World Series Game 7 here). Yankees had been only franchise against whom they did not have one.
⚾ Carlos Carrasco, Saturday: First Indians pitcher to give up 4 homers in a game they (not necessarily he) still won since Carl Pavano in Anaheim on July 27, 2009.
⚾ Evan Longoria, Monday: First Giants batter to drive in every run (3 or more) in a game he didn't start since Ernie Riles' 3-run homer against the Expos on August 22, 1988.
⚾ Kyle Hendricks, Friday: First Cubs pitcher to throw an individual shutout while only striking out 3 batters since Sergio Mitre against the Marlins, June 14, 2005.
⚾ Josh VanMeter, Sunday: First player to draw a pinch-hit walk and steal a base in his major-league debut since Toronto's Tilson Brito did it in Oakland on Opening Day 1996.
⚾ Cubs, Wednesday: First time hitting 4 sacrifice flies as a team since SFs were split into their own category in 1954. Twins (August 26, 2016) were last in majors to do it.
⚾ Reds, Saturday: Hit five two-out homers in game, their first time doing so since at least 1895 (details on a few 19th-century games are missing).
⚾ Nationals, Thursday: Second time since the move from Montréal that they've won a game in which they had 0 RBI. Other was August 21, 2014, against Arizona (1-0, run scored on an error).
⚾ Brandon Dixon, Sunday: Third batter in Tigers history with a 3- or 4-run walkoff homer against the Royals. Others were well before Dixon was before: Rusty Staub off Al Hrabosky on June 11, 1978; and Aurelio Rodriguez off Marty Pattin, June 15, 1974.
⚾ Josh Phegley, Friday: First batter with multiple 3-run doubles in same game since the Cubs' Geovany Soto did it in Pittsburgh on August 26, 2008.
⚾ Ozzie Albies, Saturday: Joined outfielder Lance Richbourg (1928-30) as the only Braves ever to have multiple 5-RBI games out of the leadoff spot (Albies also did it last May in Miami).
⚾ Kenley Jansen, Sunday: Made 600th career pitching appearance (including postseason). Allowed first-ever grand slam (a walkoff to Hunter Renfroe, the eighth in Padres history).
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