Friends In Low Places

We write a lot around these parts about big numbers. There's a lot to look up when the Astros score 23 or the Marlins score 19 or the Nationals have one of their explosions. It's messy but it's easy. The smaller numbers are sometimes harder. What can possibly be unique about a 4-2 AL Central game where the [insert sponsor here] Star Of The Game went 1-for-4 and had a solo homer in the 3rd inning? But this week a bunch of teams managed to give us small numbers that also happened to be interesting. So hang on, we're going low.


Buried Treasure

We're going to start this one in Pittsburgh, because for every ridiculous Nationals reaction, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. (It's like Abner Doubleday's fourth law of bunting or something.) You of course remember that last week ended with a ridiculous series between the Nats and Brewers that saw scores of 15-14 and 16-8. Well, the next impediment awaiting the Nats on the high seas are those pesky Pirates. Who proved not to be much so on Monday when Adam Eaton and Matt Adams both lit up Trevor Williams for 1st-inning homers. It's 4-0 before the Pirates even bat, and in the 2nd, Trea Turner drops on three more after Elias Diaz airmails a ball to second. Williams would get out of the inning but not get out of the dugout for the 3rd; he gave up 8 runs and 3 homers while getting only 6 outs. Jordan Lyles did the same thing against the Cardinals on July 24, and his name will come up again in this column (for much different reasons). But that makes this the first season in Pirates history where two pitchers have posted that line.

There are still seven more innings to play, and Asdrubal Cabrera would finally tack on a 2-run homer in the 9th to sink the Pirates by the final of 13-0. Cabrera became the first Nationals player to have a 5-RBI game in Pittsburgh; Brad Fullmer (May 30, 1998) was the last to do it for Montréal. Another Expos 5-RBI game was had by Warren Cromartie on July 4, 1982, but that was also the only time a Nats/Expos player had 3 extra-base hits in Pittsburgh-- until Adams did that on Monday. Juan Soto had 4 hits and 4 runs scored, but never drove in a run himself; Steve Lombardozzi (August 10, 2012 at Arizona) is the only other in franchise history to pull that off. And for the Pirates it was the third time they'd been blanked by 13 or more since PNC Park opened in 2001; the Cardinals did it on August 1, 2013, and the Brewers dropped a 20-0 on them on April 22, 2010.

Tuesday's game broke up all kinds of streak notes by being a ho-hum 4-1 Pirates win, but the Nationals were right back at it on Wednesday behind the arm of Patrick Corbin. He threw 8 shutout innings while Asdrubal Cabrera was busy homering again, notably to anchor a 6-run Nationals 3rd inning. Three doubles-- including one by Corbin himself-- awaited Parker Markel in the 8th inning to make it 9-0; Corbin became the team's first pitcher (starter or reliever) to double in the 8th or later since Livan Hernandez did it in an Expos uniform on July 30, 2004. More notably, he was just the second pitcher in team history to throw 8+ scoreless innings and allow no more than 3 hits in Pittsburgh. Steve Rogers did that in a 6-0 win on August 7, 1983.

The Pirates did recoup one doubloon, somewhat literally, when Josh Bell hit an RBI two-bagger in the bottom of the 9th. In the past 50 years (before which we start to lose play-by-play info), only one other Pirates batter has broken up a shutout of 11-0 or worse with a 9th-inning double. That was David Freese against the Mets on June 15, 2016. The 11-1 final, combined with the 13-0 from Monday, made it the first time a Washington team (remember, most of them were in the AL) scored 11+ twice in a series in Pittsburgh since July of 1897.

The Nats closed out the series with a 7-1 win on Thursday that saw Anthony Rendon and Howie Kendrick each connect for a homer and a double. They were just the second teammates in franchise history to do that at PNC Park; the first... were Matt Adams and Asdrubal Cabrera on Monday! And that also meant the Pirates lost by scores of 13-0, 11-1, and 7-1 just in this series. We never mentioned that they were coming off a weekend series with the Cubs in which they lost the last two games 2-0 and 7-1. So except for that "barnburner" 4-run game on Tuesday, the Pirates managed no more than 1 run in five games out of six. The last time they had a dry spell like that was May 10 through 15, 1966, against the Giants and Dodgers.


2 Win Or Not 2 Win

Ah yes, the Cubs. Who pulled into a tie with the Cardinals in the NL Central by winning those two games against Pittsburgh last weekend. You might think we're going to mention their 12-11 festival with the Giants on Wednesday. Well, okay, but mostly from the Giants' side. It was the first time they had scored 11+ at Wrigley and lost since May 8, 1984, also by a 12-11 count. And if that date looks familiar, it's because, if you went to a Wrigley/Comiskey double-dip that day, it was a long one. That's the night the White Sox and Brewers were suspended by the AL curfew, finished the next day, and played the longest game in MLB history that ended with a winner (25 innings).

Before Wednesday, the Giants hadn't hit 4 homers at Wrigley and lost since May 21, 1994. And San Francisco also had a 12-11 loss at Coors Field back on May 9 of this year. The Giants hadn't scored 11+ and lost twice in the same season since 1900. And that's not a general modern-era "since 1900"-- they actually did it in 1900, 14-13 to the Phillies on April 30, and 18-11 to the Braves a week later.

BUT the game that fits our theme, and leads to the Cubs' inclusion here, is the series finale on Thursday. Jason Heyward broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single in the 4th. Two ground balls later, Anthony Rizzo lined a single to center to score him. Annnnd that's ballgame, boys and girls. For the remaining four innings the Cubs had only one baserunner and he was erased on a double play. What's that? You say there's five innings remaining? Well not when the Giants also have just four baserunners and they're all in different innings so none of them manages to score. Fly the W, a 1-0 Cubs win on just 2 hits. In 104 seasons of games at Wrigley Field, only 13 times have the Cubs had 2 hits there and won, and the only other one in the past 25 years was April 8, 2015, against the Cardinals (scored twice in same inning on a hit batter, an error, a single, and two sacrifices). Their last 1-0 win over the Giants at Wrigley was June 9, 1977, on what reads as a walkoff squeeze play by Jose Cardenal in the 11th (sac bunt with bases loaded).

The Giants, meanwhile, were shut out on 4 hits at Wrigley for the first time ever. In fact, while they'd had 4 or fewer hits there seven or eight other times, they'd actually won every such game prior to Thursday, usually by a score of something like 2-1. Jeff Samardzija was the team's first pitcher to throw 7 innings, allow no more than 2 hits, and lose since Madison Bumgarner gave up a solo homer to the Nats' Wilson Ramos on August 7, 2016.

Someone say Nationals again? Yep, guess who's making the rounds in the NL Central and is our next visitor to Wrigley for the weekend. On Friday they once again broke up the no-hitter in the 4th, but then they didn't even have a baserunner from the 5th through 8th. Anibal Sanchez blew through them on 10, 9, 15, and 6 (!) pitches, and probably deserved to finish this thing out with the Nats up 9-0. Unfortunately a walk in the 9th and then a throwing error by Anthony Rendon on a potential game-ending double-play ball meant he didn't. Matt Grace came on and gave up 2 more hits-- remember the Cubs only had the one before that-- to create a fairly mundane-looking final of 9-3. But combined with the 2 hits against the Giants on Thursday, it was the first time the Cubs were held to 3 or fewer in back-to-back home games since May 31 and June 1 of 2016 by the Dodgers.

Sanchez was charged with 2 of those runs in the 9th (1 unearned) and thus had the strange line of 7+ innings (actually 8⅓), 1 hit, but 2 runs. Only one other pitcher in franchise history had slung that, Mark Garnder aganist the Cardinals on August 15, 1992 (he did it by hitting three batters). Sanchez was also the first Nationals pitcher to throw 8+ innings of 1-hit ball since Gio Gonzalez did it in Miami on July 31, 2017. But he's also the first one ever to do it at Wrigley for either the Nats or Expos. And nobody's done it in interleague play against the White Sox. To find the last Washington pitcher to toss such a game in Chicago, you have to go 3 weeks before Comiskey Park opened. No, the original one. Dixie Walker did it in the next-to-last homestand at South Side Park on June 10, 1910.


Light Beer

If we're gonna hang out in the NL Central, may as well grab some brews. Of course, two of MLB's three beer sponsorships are located here (sorry, Coors), and they played each other at the start of the week. We use the term "played" loosely here; at least in Monday's opener, only one team was doing much playing. Like everyone who gets pulled over on "Cops" or "Live PD" and says they only had one hit, the Brewers for once wouldn't be lying. In fact they left that goose egg up there much longer than we'd prefer, even as Dakota Hudson threw 111 pitches and didn't finish the 7th. He did walk four, but three were with two outs and it really doesn't matter if the Brewers can't hit the ball anyway. Hudson was the first Cardinals pitcher in (at least) the live-ball era to give up 0 hits, strike out 7+, and not finish the game. The others to do it were all in completed NH's, and if you're thinking of Daniel Ponce de Leon's MLB debut from last year, he only struck out 3.

Indeed, the Cardinals would be four outs away from their first-ever combined NH when Yasmani Grandal bounced an automatic double into the seats down the right-field line. And that would be all as Andrew Miller had a 1-2-3 9th and the Cardinals won 3-0. The Brewers' last time getting one-hit was August 25, 2017, by the Dodgers; of the 31 times in team history that they've had exactly 1 hit, in only 6 of them has it been a double, though none of the others was the automatic ("ground-rule") variety. Twice it came in the 9th; Robin Yount broke up a bid by Dennis Lamp of the White Sox in 1981, and in their inaugural season, Don Mincher prevented the Seattle Pilots from ever getting no-hit with a one-out double off Joe Sparma (May 31, 1969).

The Cardinals also threw a 1-hitter against the Cubs to start off the month of August; that was a Nick Castellanos single off Jack Flaherty in the 6th. The fine folks at Retrosheet have team hit totals for every game back to 1905, and it's the first time in that dataset that the Cards have thrown two in a calendar month. This also lets us point out that Busch Stadium is one-- and the oldest-- of only four active parks without a no-hitter (Yankee Stadium, Target, SunTrust). But the other side of this matchup has its own quirk; Miller Park has had only one no-hitter, and it wasn't in a Brewers game. Carlos Zambrano tossed it on September 14, 2008, when the Astros relocated two games against the Cubs to Milwaukee because of Hurricane Ike.

Heh. There's a reason we bring this up, of course, and it's Friday night's game against the Diamondbacks (who are not in the NL Central). Which Jordan Lyles started (we told you he'd come up again). And which Jordan Lyles left after 99 pitches and 6 innings-- still not having allowed a hit. Christian Walker, appropriately, walked twice and was the only baserunner for Arizona in the first eight frames. The Brewers radio crew voted to send Lyles out for the 7th and see how smoothly it went, especially since he's got a 6-0 lead to play with. Craig Counsell disagreed, trotting Devin Williams out to let Walker bloop a single in front of Trent Grisham in center, thus keeping the Zambrano factoid intact for another day.

As mentioned, the D'backs wouldn't have another baserunner (or any besides Walker) until the 9th when Jarrod Dyson drew a leadoff walk, went to second on a passed ball, and then scored an unearned run on Ketel Marte's "duck snort" to left. The only other time the Diamondbacks got held to 2 hits at Miller Park was April 7, 2006, against Dave Bush, though that one had a little less drama because Luis Gonzalez homered in the 2nd. Juan Nieves, in 1987, still owns the only completed no-hitter for the Brewers, but Lyles is now one of two pitchers in franchise history to be removed in the 6th or later with a no-hitter intact. Ben McDonald more-or-less removed himself from a game in Baltimore on July 11, 1997, complaining of a "sore shoulder" after the 6th. And Lyles also had an RBI single in the 5th to score Milwaukee's final run. Ordinarily a National League pitcher having 1 hit doesn't intrigue us unless it's a triple or something, but remember he gave up 0. And to paraphrase a popular allergy-medicine commercial, 1 is more than 0. (You know, in case you missed that day in preschool.) No Brewers pitcher had ever done 1-and-0 before, but it turns out Brandon Woodruff had 2 hits on May 26 against the Phillies while giving up only 1. And that makes this the first season where two Brewers pitchers produced more hits than they allowed in a game.


Sweet Home Chicag-O

Maybe it's not the division, maybe it's the time zone. Because the American League Central had a couple of dirges this week as well. Of course, it could also be the pitching. Lucas Giolito, arguably the ace in the White Sox rotation now, made believers out of the high-powered Twins offense on Wednesday by twirling a 3-hit complete-game shutout. The second batter of the game, Jorge Polanco, broke the Unwritten Rule by bunting for the first hit, but from there Giolito allowed only a harmless single to Nelson Cruz in the 4th and a double to Jonathan Schoop in the 8th. No other baserunners. And oh yeah, he fanned 12 including every starter except for Schoop. No White Sox pitcher had thrown an individual shutout and struck out 12 since Floyd Bannister against the Mariners on September 16, 1983! That was the longest drought of any team by more than 7 years; the Rangers now hold the honor of not having a pitcher do it since May 1, 1991-- and that was only Nolan Ryan's seventh and final no-hitter.

The last pitcher to shut out the Twins on 3 hits with 12 strikeouts was Anibal Sanchez, then of the Tigers, on May 24, 2013; Joe Mauer broke up his no-hitter with 1 out in the 9th. And it was only the second game in Target Field's 10 seasons where the Twins got shut out and only had 3 baserunners. The other was also a complete game by a Sox pitcher, Zach Stewart on September 5, 2011 (Danny Valencia broke up that NH in the 8th).


Lower Michigan

At age 36, Justin Verlander doesn't scare us as much as he used to, but every time a team struggles to get to him for the first 3 or 4 innings, it's like, uh-oh, here we go. Break out the lists just in case. Especially when he's facing his former team for whom he threw the two no-hitters he already has. So Ronny Rodriguez took care of that worry on Wednesday with a 5th-inning solo homer. Unfazed, JV kept setting down batters, eight more in a row on 36 pitches to reach the 9th inning. The game is now tied 1-1 and JV's only at 88 pitches for the game. No way he's coming out of this one. He might have pitched 11 or 12 innings and needed to be hit with a tranquilizer dart to get pulled. Welp, John Hicks kinda provided the dart with another solo homer to lead off the 9th. And Robinson Chirinos added the final nail by making the third out at third base trying to stretch his 9th-inning double into a triple. So it was that Verlander threw a 9-inning complete game, gave up only 2 hits, struck out 11, and lost because both those hits were solo homers.

So where to begin. The only other pitcher in the past quarter-century to pull off all of that (9-inning CG, 2 hits, 11 K, and lost) was James Shields of the Rays in a fairly meaningless last-weekend-of-season game on October 2, 2012. Dropping out the 2 hits for a moment, the last Astros pitcher to throw any CG with 11 strikeouts and lose it was Shane Reynolds against the Pirates on August 15, 1999; he also gave up 2 solo homers among 5 total hits. And foreshadowing the Cubs' game the next day, it was the second time in the past 15 years that the Tigers had 2 hits in a game and won. They also did it in Chicago on April 8 of last year. It's also their first game in (at least) the live-ball era where the team as a whole had multiple hits and all of them were solo homers.

Many people would say that Gerrit Cole is now the scary one in the Astros rotation, and a few of those people would probably be Tigers batters as well. They had to face him in Thursday's finale, and yet again managed to come up with only 2 hits, although Ronny Rodriguez broke this one up in his first at-bat. Victor Reyes's roller to left was the only other blemish on Cole's outing; he left after 7 having struck out 12. Including Game 2 of last year's Division Series, it's the third time Cole has struck out a dozen and allowed no more than 3 baserunners; that's actually the most in Astros history. JV, J.R. (Richard), and Mike Scott have each done it twice.

So you can kind of forgive Joe Biagini for coming into the 9th with a 6-0 lead and maybe not being as locked-in as possible. But the reason you didn't notice this game was that the Tigers, having gotten only 2 hits in the first 8 innings, took Biagini for 3 hits, 3 runs, and 2 homers to make the final score a very average-looking 6-3. The last time the Tigers failed to score in the first 8 innings, and then went yard multiple times in the 9th, was June 17, 2016 at Kansas City against Dillon Gee. And John Hicks recorded the Tigers' first pinch-hit homer in the 9th or later since Victor Martinez hit one at Target Field on September 22, 2016. The only team to go longer without such a homer is the Rockies-- by 3 days.



Once again you get your choice. We're about to get to the Marlins, so "Flo Rida" seems appropriate. But of course there's the classic that's the title of the post. And we just made a whole bunch of beer references. So feel free to slip on down to the oasis as well. Intermission!



The Lowcountry

The Braves' offense went through a couple long stretches of doing nothing this week. On Wednesday against Marlins starter Caleb Smith they collected only three hits, but those aren't any ordinary hits. After a leadoff walk in the 2nd, Tyler Flowers broke up the proverbial no-hitter with an RBI triple. Five pitches later, Adeiny Echavarria put one over the center-field wall to make it 3-0. Smith did do his part with doubles in both the 3rd and 5th, but with no one aboard and the top of the order never brought him around. He then walked Echavarria to start the bottom of the 5th and Ronald Acuña homered. That's 5 runs. On 3 hits. Two homers and a triple. The Braves had not pulled a 5-on-3 since April 8, 2012, in a 7-5 loss at Citi Field. But it was just their second game ever in the live-ball era where they collected 2 homers and a triple, but no doubles or singles. That other contest was also in 2012, July 19 against the Giants. As for Smith's two doubles, he joined A.J. Burnett (2002), Brian Edmonson (1999), and Terry Mathews (1995) as the only Marlins pitchers to do that, and is the first pitcher for any team (including the Braves) with a 2-XBH game at the relatively-new SunTrust Park.

By Friday the Braves hit the road to that kinda swampy part near LaGuardia and got the joy of facing Jacob deGrom and his strikeouts of many colors. Atlanta countered with Mike Foltynewicz, who also went into a fairly effective shutdown mode. Both teams did get a hit in the 2nd, but then floundered through those middle innings until Ozzie Albies singled, stole second, and Freddie Freeman drove him in. Leading off the 6th for the Mets is deGrom, who is constantly plagued by lack of run support and is already the Mets' all-time leader in games where he strikes out 10 or more and doesn't get a win. So all he can do is help himself by going yard. Oh yeah, and striking out a total of 13 Atlanta hitters. It's something he also did in April 3 in Miami, thereby becoming the first pitcher in MLB history to have multiple games where he fanned 13 and also homered.

Except our problem is that once the two starters leave after 7, it's still a 1-1 tie and someone forgot to wake the offenses-- who manage just 4 hits between them until the 12th, and three of those are with 2 outs. It is not until the 14th that Tyler Flowers draws a leadoff walk, apparently scores on a double but then gets sent back to third by replay, and thus needs Billy Hamilton to single him home. That last hit was the Braves' first go-ahead single to occur that late in a road game since Randall Simon also had one in the 14th at Coors Field on August 19, 1999. And when the Mets couldn't score in their half, well, there's another deGrom no-decision for you. If you use a strikeout threshold of 11 or more, it's his 10th non-win in such a game, passing Sid Fernandez and leaving him one shy of Seaver. (At 12 or 13, the three are always either tied or one apart depending on whether you include postseason.)

Thanks to the extra innings, though, those 13 K's by deGrom were only half of the Braves' total for the game. They are the second team that we know of ever to strike out 26 times in a game of any length and win it. The Brewers did it in a 17-inning, 1-0 "triumph" over Anaheim on June 8, 2004. And remember deGrom's homer? That winds up being the Mets' only run of the game, something that had only happened once before in team history-- when Noah Syndergaard did it against the Reds on May 2 and they won.

The finale on Sunday was much of the same, the Braves again escaping with a 2-1 win, but this time they were nice enough to even do it in 9 innings. In fact, the "2" in that score belongs completely to Josh Donaldson, who became the fifth player in Braves history to hit multiple solo homers that accounted for all their runs in a win. Those others are A.J. Pierzynski (2015), Chipper Jones (1999), Hank Aaron (1961), and Butch Nieman (1944).

The Braves' only other hit in that Sunday game was when Adam Duvall doubled on the heels of Donaldson's first homer but ended up stranded at third. So that's 3 hits in a win. Sound familliar? Scroll up, as the kids say. That's where we started this section, with their game against the Marlins on Wednesday. The last time the Braves had 3 hits and won, twice in five days, was a back-to-back on June 20 (vs PIT) and 21 (vs SF) of 1963. It's also the fourth time this year they've won such a game, the team's most in a season since 1916.


Low Ceiling

The Mets were not without some other moments this week, however. On Wednesday they lumbered along to a 2-2 tie with Cleveland before Luis Avilan gave up a solo homer to Carlos Santana in the 10th. It was the first extra-inning homer the Indians had ever hit in Queens (including those two seasons the Yankees played at Shea), and their first in any borough since Marquis Grissom took Mariano Rivera deep on July 14, 1997.

Amed Rosario would renew the spark with a leadoff double in the bottom half, score on a forceout by Michael Conforto to tie the game, and after another single put runners at first and second, J.D. Davis comes through with the walkoff when Conforto beats the play at the plate. That rendered Santana as the first Cleveland batter with a double and an extra-inning homer in a game they ended up losing since... Carlos Santana at Arizona on June 24, 2014. He's the first player in team history to do it twice.

And as for walkoffs, well, the Mets had never had one (of any kind, extra innings or not) against Cleveland. There remain just two teams against whom they don't have one, the Mariners and Rangers. And asterisk alert, their only one against the Red Sox did come in the postseason. But as you may know, that's a pretty big asterisk.

On Thursday it was Noah Syndergaard's turn to take the mound, and well, it turns out "Thor" wasn't the only god of thunder hanging around Citi Field. On a day that also featured rain delays in Baltimore, St Louis, and many other minor-league cities along the East Coast, a storm that brewed over Flushing in the 6th inning was the only thing able to force Syndergaard out of the game. Certainly it wasn't the Indians' offense, which had gotten perfect-gamed until Tyler Naquin and Francisco Lindor snuck in singles right before the rain started. With the Mets leading 2-0, the game was halted for almost 2½ hours, shutting down both Syndergaard and Cleveland starter Aaron Civale. However, Jeurys Familia gave up only a walk in the 7th, and Paul Sewald worked a perfect 8th before it started raining again. This time (it's already close to midnight and this is the end of the series) the umpires waited only the required half-hour before declaring the game over and the Mets 2-0 victors. The last time the Indians were held to 2 hits in any game in New York was on September 4, 1993, when the Yankees' Jim Abbott no-hit them. It was the sixth time it had happened to them in a National League park, with two of those being in the 1995 World Series against Atlanta. And Syndergaard, by also not walking anyone, became the first Mets pitcher this year to throw at least 6 innings and allow only 2 baserunners.


Low-s Angeles

Chavez Ravine, kind of by the definition of a "ravine", is among the lower spots in its immediate area, and it's not known as a hitter's paradaise. Certainly not compared to Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays play. But those two teams were not playing in Toronto this week, they were in downtown Los Angeles, and with Walker Buehler taking the mound for the Dodgers on Wednesday. That went well; in typical Buehler form, he scattered 5 hits and 8 strikeouts across 7 scoreless innings. The Jays, who have embraced the "opener" format for many of their games over the last couple months, also watched their five bullpen guys combine to only give up 5 hits and 1 run over the first 9 innings. And that meant the Dodgers were on track to win another 1-0 game... until Rowdy Tellez crushes one off Kenley Jansen in the 9th for the latter's sixth blown save of the year (and some audible boos from the locals). Buehler is probably wanting Wednesdays in August as his day off (see what we did there?), because the last Dodgers pitcher to throw 7+ innings with 0 runs and 8 strikeouts and not win... was Walker Buehler, exactly 52 weeks ago (August 22, 2018). Only three other Dodgers pitchers in the live-ball era have done that twice-- Kevin Brown, Hideo Nomo, and Don Sutton.

Taking nothing away from Tellez, he was the second player in Jays history to hit any 9th-inning homer at Dodger Stadium, but it turns out the other one also tied the game at the time. Matt Stairs went deep off Takashi Saito on June 8, 2007. And you know that thing about history repeating itself? In that game 12 years ago, Olmedo Saenz promptly re-won the game for the Dodgers with a walkoff homer in the 10th. Oh hey, look who's coming up for the Dodgers in the 10th on Thursday. (NO, it's not Olmedo Saenz. But dare to dream.) It's Max Muncy, who's been known to hit walkoff homers for the Dodgers in interleague games. Boom. And if you'd like to complete your list, we've mentioned three of the four walkoff homers the Dodgers have ever hit in extras against an AL opponent; the last was by Andre Ethier in the Freeway Series on August 2, 2015.

In the finale on Thursday, the Dodgers got the interesting phenomenon of Jays rookie Jacob Waguespack. There's nothing particularly interesting about him (we know, his parents would definitely say otherwise, please don't @ us), just the phenomenon of a new, unscouted, rookie pitcher from the opposite league who these Dodger sluggers have never seen before and need some time to figure out. To the extent that, for some of them, even three tries wasn't quite enough. In 7 innings versus 24 batters Waguespack walked 1, hit 1, and gave up only 1 hit-- to the freakin' pitcher, Kenta Maeda. The Dodgers get only a harmless 2-out walk in the 8th, sending them to the final inning down 2-0 and on the verge of getting 1-hit in their own stadium.

Something about history repeating. Max Muncy is due up to start the 9th, but down by 2, all he can do is draw a walk. And have Cody Bellinger double him to third. And have Corey Seager double both of them in to tie the game. That took Waguespack's 7-inning, 1-hit performance out of the running to also get a win. Trent Thornton and Marcus Stroman had identical games earlier in the year (7 IP, 1 H, didn't win); the Jays are the first pitching staff in at least the live-ball era to have three such outings in the same season. And when Enrique Hernandez singles home Seager for the walkoff, the Dodgers have their second-ever interleague series (including World Serieses) with multiple walkoff wins. The other was in April 2015 against the Mariners.


Order Up Down

Our overwhelming theme was low numbers, but when we chose the title, we picked "low places" since it can also refer to spots in the lineup. With some unusual interleague series also happening this week, the low numbers toward the top were sometimes offset by big numbers, well, down low.

In one of the games of that Brewers/Cardinals beer series, Harrison Bader posted the unusual combination of a triple and 3 walks. That was already strange enough to be the first such game for the Cardinals since Jim Edmonds in Philadelphia on August 16, 2003. BUT he did it batting 8th, a victim of the "unintentional walk" the other team always issues to get to the pitcher's spot. No Cardinals 8- or 9-hitter had collected a triple and 3 walks since Charlie Gelbert, also against the Phillies, on May 12, 1932.

Delino DeShields didn't have much to do with Monday's walkoff win over the Angels, other than keeping the line moving. He neither scored a run nor drove one in, but he did collect 2 singles and 2 stolen bases from the 8-hole in the Rangers' order. Their last 8- or 9- to do it? That's Delino DeShields, aganist the Mets on June 6, 2017. Others in Rangers/Senators history to do it twice include Elvis Andrus, Julio Borbon, Craig Gentry, Tom Goodwin, and Wayne Tolleson.

Nick Ahmed of the Diamondbacks collected both a homer and a sac fly out of the 7-spot in Tuesday's win over Colorado. He also did that on July 7 of last year in a blowout win over the Padres, joining Chris Snyder and Danny Bautista as the only Arizona hitters to do it twice.

From the "random combo" file, Richie Martin of the Orioles managed to connect for 2 hits, get hit by a pitch, and lay down a successful sac bunt all in Wednesday's game against the Royals. Only one other #9 batter in Orioles history has ever done that, Mark Belanger against the Yankees on August 12, 1978.

Mike Ford-- who has gotten to know the I-80 New York-to-Scranton corridor fairly well this season-- was with the Yankees at (okay, very near to) the other end of I-80 in Oakland this week. On Wednesday he was part of the Yankees' second consecutive loss there (4-2 and 6-2) despite their having 11 hits in both games. They'd only done that in Oakland once before (July 3-4, 1993), and Ford chipped in 3 hits including a homer out of the #9 spot. No Yankees batter had done that in a road loss since Mike Blowers at Texas on April 21, 1990.

The Twins dropped Friday's game to Detroit 9-6, but it wasn't for lack of that homer-happy offense of theirs. You just had to look a little further down. Jake Cave, all the way at the bottom of the order, had two homers to become the second #9 batter in franchise history to do that in a loss. Mark Salas did it in Detroit on May 29, 1987. And Cave joined Miguel Sano, up in the 6-hole, as the first teammates in Twins/Senators history to each homer twice in a loss.

Meanwhile on Friday, Dee Gordon was busy collecting a single, double, and triple in the Mariners' 7-4 win against Toronto. Dee gets around the batting order (and the bases), he's actually batted in every spot except 3rd this year, but it's most often either 1st or 9th. On Friday it was 9th-- from which the only other Mariners to do the single/double/triple combo had been Desi Relaford (2002) and Harold Reynolds (1987).


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Dodgers, Tuesday: Third home game in Los Angeles where they had 5+ homers and 5+ doubles. One was a 21-5 win over Milwaukee last August; the other was the game in September 2006 where they hit 4 straight in the 9th to tie and then walked off in extras.

⚾ Joe Musgrove, Friday: Pirates' first pitcher-as-pinch-runner to score the winning run in a walkoff since Rick Reuschel against the Phillies on July 2, 1986.

⚾ Corey Dickerson, Saturday: First Phillies batter to have 4 hits and 5 RBI without homering since Tom Herr against the Astros on May 2, 1990.

⚾ Royals, Monday: Sixth game this year where they had 6 or fewer hits but still scored at least 5 runs. Most in a season in team history (did it 5x in 1977 and 1969).

⚾ Mallex Smith, Wednesday: Second lead-flipping triple in Mariners history when team was down to its final out. Al Cowens hit one at Texas on June 15, 1983.

⚾ Kevin Newman, Sunday: First player with 4 hits, 2 stolen bases, and a hit-by-pitch in same game since Mike Benjamin of the Giants on June 11, 1995.

⚾ Starlin Castro, Friday: Second Marlins batter ever with 2 homers and 5 RBI in a game he didn't start. Jeff Conine did it in an 11-0 win at Wrigley on August 26, 1997.

⚾ Tigers/Astros, Tuesday: First game ever played in Houston (any stadium) where both teams led off the game with a home run.

⚾ Yankees, Saturday: Ended 1-run loss with back-to-back strikeouts with the bases loaded. Last time they did that was July 23, 1988, at Kansas City (the whiffers were Jack Clark and Dave Winfield).

⚾ Ariel Jurado, Thursday: First Rangers pitcher to throw a complete game and give up 10+ hits since Kevin Millwood at Anaheim, April 5, 2008.

⚾ Bryce Harper, Wednesday: First Phillies batter ever to hit a lead-flipping homer (any inning) at Fenway Park, including the occasional game that the Braves played there.

⚾ Alex Wood, Saturday: First Reds pitcher to have multiple hits in a game where the team got shut out since Tony Cloninger at San Diego on May 8, 1971.

⚾ Madison Bumgarner, Tuesday: Second pinch-hit walk (as a batter) this season, other being August 9 against the Phillies. Last Giants pitcher to receive two in a season was Johnny Antonelli in 1957.

⚾ Matt Boyd, Sunday: First Tigers pitcher to give up 7+ earned runs on only 4 hits in a road game since Beiker Graterol did it in his only career MLB appearance, April 9, 1999, against the Yankees.

⚾ Didi Gregorius, Friday: First Yankees batter with a multi-homer game against the Dodgers since, oh, a little 3-homer one you might have heard of.

⚾ Jose Alvarado, Saturday: First starter for any team to throw 2 wild pitches while recording only 1 out since Toronto's Jim Clancy on August 22, 1984.

⚾ Mariners, Monday: First time scoring 9+ runs at Tropicana Field since May 24, 2007. Have done it in every other American League stadium at least three times since then.

⚾ Gleyber Torres, Thursday: Second Yankees batter to have 2 homers in a loss in Oakland, joining Oscar Gamble on May 1, 1981.

⚾ Clayton Kershaw, Tue/Sun: First Dodgers pitcher to give up 3+ homers in consecutive starts since Claude Osteen in July 1970! Every other team has had at least one pitcher (usually several) do it just in this century.

Countdown

We hadn't done one of these yet this season, and when the week started with some big numbers like 19-3 and 17-7 and 15-1, we said, hey, this could be our chance. Heh. Little did we know what the weekend would dump on us. So settle in as we take you through some mini-themes from 20 all the way to 1. And no worries if you skip a few or have to leave; it'll repeat every six hours for like the next five days.


Number 20: Homers (what else?)

Twenty homers over the course of a major-league day is actually on the low side. If there's a full slate it's barely one per game. Even on Thursday with a few teams getting a travel day, it would have been one per team. But what if we said Thursday managed to cram 20 homers into just two games, both record-setting in their own right? We're going to bring you one of them later on so we can use up another number, but the homer-fest between Houston and Oakland seemed to get the most attention. That's probably because of the cavernous nature of Oakland Coliseum as a result of having to jigger in a football field for half the year; it is consistently toward the bottom in rankings of hitter-friendly ballparks (and fan-friendly, but that's another topic).

So it was no surprise that the teams combined for a lone 2-out single in the first 3 innings before Alex Bregman gave the Astros a 2-0 lead in the 4th. Matt Olson flipped that with a 3-run shot in the bottom half and then Corban Joseph added an insurance run. The very next Astros batter, Carlos Correa leading off the 5th, gets the Astros back to 4-3. Michael Brantley goes yard in the 6th to re-tie it before Matt Chapman and Matt Olson go back-to-back in their half. Correa hits another homer to lead off the 7th, finally knocking Mike Fiers off the mound. Brantley and Chapman traded solo shots again in the 8th, but Liam Hendricks worked a 1-2-3 9th to preserve the 7-6 win. So all told, 13 runs, all scored on homers, with only the first two homers being multi-run shots.

The Oakland Coliseum had never even had a game with nine homers until Thursday, though its most recent 8-HR game was not quite a year ago (August 19, also vs Astros). And it had been nearly 2 years to the day since both starters in a game allowed 4 dingers; Andrew Heaney and Jeremy Hellickson pulled that off on August 18, 2017. But for Brantley re-tying the game in the 8th, Fiers would actually have been in line for a win; still he became the first Oakland pitcher to surrender 4 longballs and not lose since Dan Straily got a no-decision against the Angels on August 8, 2012.

Correa and Brantley would end up being just the second Astros teammates ever to hit multiple homers in a loss; Jason Castro and Matt Dominguez did it in an 11-5 loss to the A's at home on May 25, 2013. Matt Chapman, who made it 5-4 and then hit the final homer to make it 7-6, was the first Oakland batter to hit multiple go-ahead homers in the 6th or later of the same game since Eric Chavez did it at Texas on April 9, 2002. And those three, combined with Olson's two homers, made it the first game in major-league history where two players on each team hit two homers apiece.

As mentioned, however, that wasn't even the only 10-homer game just on Thursday. The only other time it happened twice on a day was July 2, 2002. More on both of those later. (Ooh, cliffhanger.)


Number 19: Maybe Only 15 In Canadian

Speaking of the Astros, they put up one of the most memorable games of the season last weekend with a 23-2 beatdown in Baltimore. So as always, the Blue Jays apparently read our post last Monday and said, hey, there's a neat idea. They didn't quite get to 23, but they did jump on Rangers starter Ariel Jurado for 5 runs in the first 3 innings, then forced him out of the game after three more baserunners in the 4th. Brandon Drury quickly greeted Adrian Sampson with a grand slam, just the fourth one the Jays had ever hit while already leading by 8 or more. Edwin Encarnacion (2015), Tony Fernandez (2001), and Glenallen Hill (1990) had the others. Jurado was the first Rangers starter to give up 11 hits and 8 runs without finishing the 4th inning since Derek Holland also did it in Toronto on May 5, 2016.

Although the 8-run 4th was the big blow, the Jays tacked on multiple doubles in both the 5th and 6th, plus a 2-run homer by Danny Jansen in the 8th to finally seal the game at 19-4. Toronto ended up with 9 doubles in a game for just the second time ever; the other was against the Yankees on August 8, 2007. Brock Stewart, who technically "relieved" Neil Ramirez even though the latter only threw 7 pitches in the 1st, got credit for the win despite allowing 3 homers-- the first "reliever" in Jays history to do that.

And flash back 20 years plus 3 days to August 9, 1999. One of the finals on that day: Toronto 19, Texas 4. The exact same score, with the exact same teams, as happened on Monday. It's the first time in MLB history that exact score (19-4) has been repeated with the same two teams. It's also the third 19-4 game in the majors this season, matching the number we had in the first 18 years of this century combined.


Number 18: Striking Out In San Diego

We had a few teams end up with 18 hits in a game this week, but we're going to hit all of them in other numbers. This one is going to be a really quick nod to the Padres' 7-5 loss to the Rays on Tuesday in which they fanned 18 times against Brendan McKay and friends, 13 of them swinging, and including the last 5 outs of the game. Four of those were against Emilio Pagán, who became the first pitcher in Rays history to get a save of 4 outs or longer where every out was via strikeout. It was the first 9-inning home game in Padres history, at either stadium, where they struck out 18 times; they've done it three times on the road, one of those (May 10, 2013) being against the Rays as well (Alex Cobb). The other two road games were at Dodger Stadium in 2012 and 1970 at Shea Stadium-- Tom Seaver's 19-K game that included 10 in a row, still an active major-league record.


Number 17: Do The Redskins And Bengals Play This Year?

The Nationals eked out a 3-1 win over Cincinnati on Tuesday behind a pair of 4th-inning solo homers. On Wednesday, however, there would be no such drama, at least not after the wings fell off of Trevor Bauer's drone in the 5th inning. The recently-acquired, and occasionally-controversial, Reds starter gave up a harmless-enough leadoff single. But then double, single, mound visit, single, 3-run homer by Adam Eaton, solo homer by Anthony Rendon two pitches later, single, mound visit, walk (clearly the mound visits are working), pitching change. Sal Romano didn't fare much better at first, throwing a wild pitch on his second offering and then giving up a double and another 3-run homer before getting out of the inning. By that point the Nats had secured the sixth 10-run inning in franchise history, and just the second since the move to Washington. Despite the many high-scoring Nats game that we seem to write about, their only other 10-run frame was in Colorado on April 27, 2017. The franchise's only other 10-run frame in a home game was against the Cubs on June 25, 1975; the other double digits came in 1997 at Candlestick, 1985 at Wrigley, and 1979 in Atlanta.

Bauer got tagged with the first 9 runs, becoming the second pitcher in Reds history ever to allow 9+ including multiple homers against the Nats/Expos franchise. Kevin Jarvis did it in Montréal on August 2, 1996. And Romano would end up taking one for the team, surrendering 6 more runs in the 6th which will get us to that #17 above. Bauer and Romano are the second Reds teammates in the past half-century to each give up 8 runs in the same game; Michael Lorenzen and Dylan Axelrod did it at Coors on July 26, 2015.

That game at Coors 4 years ago also ended with a 17-7 score. Nationals pitcher Javy Guerra, spotted a 13-run lead, became the third pitcher in franchise history to "earn" a save despite allowing 3 runs and 2 homers; Tim Barrett (1988) and Claude Raymond (1970) both did it against the Cardinals. And as for that Redskins/Bengals score, well, the football team's had it happen a lot more recently than the baseball team. The last MLB game in Washington to end with a 17-7 count, in either direction, featured the original Senators beating the White Sox on May 7, 1934.


Number 16: Do We Have To Leave?

Like it or not, MLB has employed the "unbalanced schedule" for years now such that very nearly half of every team's games (76 of 162) are within their division. That means the Yankees, along with the Red Sox, Rays, and Blue Jays, all get to play the dumpster fire that is the Baltimore Orioles 19 times over the course of the season. After an Opening Day win back in March, the Yankees actually lost the next two games against the Orioles to finish March with a record of 1-2. But you might have heard what's happened during those other 16 games on April 1 and beyond. New York won all 16 of them, creating their longest single-season win streak against the same opponent since back when there were only seven teams to play. The "Murderers' Row" Yankees of 1927 won 21 straight against this same franchise, then the St Louis Browns. It was the longest single-season losing streak for the Orioles since dropping 17 in a row to the Indians in 1954, their first season in Baltimore.

There was one bright spot for the Orioles in that 16th straight loss on Wednesday, when Renato Nuñez connected for his first career 5-hit game. No Baltimore hitter had posted 5 hits in a loss since Derrek Lee in Washington on June 17, 2011; and only Jerry Adair (1962) and Gene Woodling (1958) had done it against the Yankees at all (those games were both Orioles wins). And in Monday's rainout-induced doubleheader, Trey Mancini became the first Oriole to homer in both games of a DH against the Yankees since Manny Machado on October 3, 2015. But the team's last batter to do it against the Yankees and also lose both games... wasn't an Oriole. That's back in the St Louis days as well; Chet Laabs experienced said futility for the Browns on June 16, 1946.


Number 15: Party In The City Where The Heat Is On

Hurricane "Dodgers" blew through South Florida this week, beginning with a Tuesday slugfest against the Marlins that actually didn't start out that way. Jordan Yamamoto did give up 2 early homers, but left after 5 innings with the Marlins trailing only 4-1. Wei-Yen Chen entered for the 6th, and 6 was indeed his magic number. In his two innings he gave up a 2-run homer to (ahem) Will Smith, back-to-back doubles to Kyle Garlick and Max Muncy, and then back-to-back homers by Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger. Six runs on six hits while getting just six outs; the last Marlins pitcher to do that while also allowing 3 homers was... Wei-Yin Chen, April 9 in Cincinnati. The only other pitcher in team history to do it twice was Chris Hammond in 1996. Smith joined Yasiel Puig (July 2017) and Joc Pederson (September 2016) as the only Dodgers with a multi-homer game at Marlins Park, and Los Angeles became the first team, including the Marlins, ever to hit 6 homers in a game in Miami-Dade County (either stadium).

The doubles were flowing equally fast, and the Dodgers ended up collecting 13 extra-base hits for just the second time in the live-ball era. The other game where they did it is fairly famous: September 18, 2006, when they hit four straight homers to tie the Padres in the bottom of the 9th and then walked off in extras.

Russell Martin ended up pitching the bottom of the 9th with the 14-run lead, joining Robin Ventura (2004) and Jeff Hamilton (1989 in a 22-inning game) as the only Dodgers ever to play third base and pitch in the same game. Tuesday was the first time the Dodgers had ever scored 15+ runs, or won by 14+ runs, against the Marlins, home or away. And even though that other Wei-Yen Chen game in Cincinnati in April was also a 14-run loss, only once before in team history had the Marlins lost a home game by 14. Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano and friends shut them down by a 16-2 count on July 20, 2003.

We should also point out that the Dodgers went on to hit 4 more homers in the remaining two games of the series, and by the end of the week had become the first team in MLB history to go deep 4 times in each of 5 consecutive games.


Number 14: More Football In Washington

Between the "hits" and "runs" columns, we literally could have picked any number between 14 and 20 to cram in this weekend's escapades at Nationals Park. The Brewers began Saturday by roughing up Anibal Sanchez for 5 runs in the 3rd, although the Nats got those back on home runs by Juan Soto and Adam Eaton. Matt Grace gave up 3 more, leaving without retiring a batter in the 6th, but Trea Turner homered in the bottom half to get those back. By the 9th, Sean Doolittle is handed an 11-8 lead... and gives up three homers, including Ryan Braun's second of the game and Christian Yelich's 40th of the year. Josh Hader, however, would then blow the save on the other side when Yan Gomes drew a leadoff walk and Victor Robles singled him in two batters later.

So off to extras we go, already tied at 12. Finally Yelich goes yard again in the top of the 13th; he and Braun are the first Brewers teammates with two in the same game since Prince Fielder and Mike Rivera against the Padres on August 13, 2009. So in the bottom half, all we need is for Jeremy Jeffress to-- yeah. He gives up two baserunners and then Victor Robles comes up short of a 3-run walkoff homer against Junior Guerra. Instead it turns into a game-tying sac fly and off we go again. In the 14th it is Eric Thames's turn to homer, making Milwaukee the first team to hit multiple go-ahead homers in the 13th or later of the same game since Matt Adams of the Cardinals famously did it by himself on September 4, 2013. Only once before had the Brewers ever hit two 13th-or-later homers in the same game; that was at Miller Park on May 20, 2011. Yuniesky Betancourt tied it after the Rockies had scored in T13, and then Prince Fielder walked off in the 14th.

It's worth pointing out that Thames's homer was a 2-run shot, because we're not done. Eaton doubles in the bottom of the 14th and then scores when Brewers 2B Keston Hiura airmails what should have been the game-ending groundout. Juan Soto, who reached on that error, then stole third to put the tying run just 90 feet away-- again. However, pitcher-as-pinch-hitter Joe Ross struck out to end the game with a 15-14 final and also in 14 innings. The Nats/Expos franchise had never scored more than 11 runs in a game and lost. Adam Eaton, who ended up with 3 extra-base hits and 3 RBIs, was the first to do that in a home loss for the franchise since Hubie Brooks on September 18, 1985. And the Brewers, who collected 7 homers on the night, had only done that once before in their history, a 14-1 thumping in Cleveland on April 29, 1980.


Long-Distance Dedication

So much of this post is already done before the Sunday games start that, well, sometimes a Sunday game comes along and messes things up. That would be the finale between the Nats and Brewers; after 29 runs, 38 hits, and 5½ hours on Saturday night, you think they might cooperate and settle down? Pffft.

To their credit, at least the Nationals said, if we're gonna score 14 runs again, let's do it early this time and get outta here. So they immediately bomb Chase Anderson with 10 runs by the 3rd inning, rendering him the first starter in Brewers history to give up double digits while getting no more than 7 outs. (Honorable mention to Yovani Gallardo who once did 11-in-8.) Aaron Wilkerson didn't fare much better, surrendering a 3-run homer to Anthony Rendon to close Anderson's line, then a back-to-back with Juan Soto. It's 13-4 by the time Soto and Adam Eaton both go deep in the 5th to make Wilkerson the first Brewers reliever to give up 4 homers since Manny Parra in September 2008. That also surpasses last night's run total and marks the first time in Nats/Expos history they'd scored 14+ in consecutive games. The only other time the Brewers allowed it was in Arlington on August 2 & 3, 1991.

With the Brewers unable to score again, right fielder Hernan Perez would eventually take the mound and give up an eighth home run, the second of the game by Brian Dozier. Kyle McGowin, now staked to a 12-run lead, only has to get three ou-- homer by Mike Moustakas, his second of the game. Moose would end up being the first player in Brewers history to record 3 extra-base hits and 5 RBI in a loss. Okay, two more ou-- 2-run homer by Orlando Arcia. Throw on a Ben Gamel dinger that we didn't even mention, and you have the fifth game in MLB history with 12 home runs. (Remember those two 10-HR games from earlier? Pffft.) Three of those five have been this season, including the record-holding 13-HR game in Philadelphia in June. And remember those 38 combined hits from Saturday night? After McGowin finally got those two outs to close the books at 16-8, this one ended up with 36 combined hits. Those are the two highest totals in Nationals Park history, and on back-to-back days. Its previous high had been 35, in that 25-4 jamboree against the Mets last July (which was also the only other time the Nats had scored 13 by the 3rd inning). Speaking of 13.


Number 13: Cards In A Suit

We had our choice of 13-run games this week as well, but the Cardinals managed an interesting three-peat in Cincinnati on Friday. Behind 6 early runs off Luis Castillo, and then 7 more in the middle innings to knock Castillo out and inflate Matt Bowman's ERA, they cruised to a 13-4 win after managing only 2 hits in the series opener on Thursday. Castillo was the first Reds pitcher to give up 8 runs and 3 homers to the Cardinals since Aaron Harang did it 11 years earlier to the day (August 16, 2008). Dexter Fowler had a homer, a double, and a single to drive in 4 runs, the first Cardinals leadoff batter to do all that in a road game since Orlando Palmeiro in Milwaukee on April 14, 2003. Turns out Tommy Edman-- who batted 2nd on Friday, but leadoff last month-- also had a 4-RBI game in Cincinnati back on July 18; it's the first time in Cardinals history where multiple leadoff batters have had a 4-RBI road game against the same opponent in the same season.

And as for that 13-4 score and unique three-peat? Look at the Cardinals' games in Cincinnati last season. You'll see an identical 13-4 score on April 12. Then scroll back to 2017. Yet another 13-4 exact score, this time on August 6. We weren't able to run every possible score in MLB history (and for the lower ones it's probably fairly common), but at least among the 13-4 club it's the first time any team has beaten the same opponent on the road by that exact score in three consecutive seasons.


Number 12: Pitching Dirty Dozen

In this "new" era of All The Homers and All The Strikeouts, 12 is often the new 10 when it comes to pitching. Two hurlers this week managed to reach a dozen strikeouts in a game, and both of them on the same day. Chris Sale did it for the Red Sox, while Cubs starter Jose Quintana fanned 14 against the Phillies. Neither one of them got the win. Sale left the mound (possibly for the last time this season, we now know) in the 7th hanging onto a 1-run lead, but the Sox blew that and had to win in extras. (More on this game later.) For Sale it was the 16th time he had fanned 12+ and not gotten a win, trailing only Randy Johnson (41) and Nolan Ryan (32).

Quintana only gave up 2 runs, one of which was unearned, but the Cubs only scored 1 for him and they lost 4-2. No Cubs pitcher had fanned 14+ opponents in a game the team lost since Mark Prior got a no-decision against the Reds on September 30, 2004. Tuesday was the first day this season where two pitchers fanned 12 and didn't get a win, but it's not all that rare anymore. Going back 3 years, to the 2016 All-Star break, it's happened five times. The kicker? Chris Sale is one of the two pitchers on four of those five days.


Number 11: Snake Eyes

The Giants had potential to be up at #18 when they piled up that many hits against the Diamondbacks on Saturday. The only two games this season where San Francisco reached 18 hits were both in Colorado in July; they hadn't done it at Chase Field since September 10, 2016. Ultimately, though, it would be their 11 runs that won out, starting with a 2nd-inning grand slam by Brandon Belt. Back on June 21, the Giants also scored 11 runs at Chase Field, with four of those also coming on a grand slam, by Alex Dickerson. It's the first time the Giants have ever hit two slams at the Arizona ballpark in the same season. Belt added two more RBIs with a 3rd-inning single and an 8th-inning groundout, also joining Dickerson in the club of Giants batters to have a 6-RBI game at Chase. The only other member of said club is Pedro Feliz, who did it in an 8-2 win on June 15, 2006.

But as for the 18 hits, Belt only had two of those. It was the batter above him, Kevin Pillar, who connected for four singles and a double, just the third Giants batter with a 5-hit game in Phoenix. Andrew McCutchen did it on August 4 of last season, and Marvin Benard did it in an 11-4 win on July 28, 2001. Saturday was the first time one Giants batter (Pillar) had 5 hits and another (Belt) had 6 RBI since the roles were slightly reversed: Belt did both (5 and 6), while Hunter Pence had 3 hits and 7 RBI at Dodger Stadium on September 14, 2013.

Honorable mention to Mike Yastrzemski who had 3 hits for the second straight night-- the first Giants leadoff batter to do that since Denard Span in May 2017, and something his legendary grandfather actually never did, because he never batted leadoff.


Numbers 10 and 9: By The Time I Get To Phoenix

Now, about that "second straight night". We're going to stay in Arizona for more of the Giants series, and we're going back up (we are counting backwards here) to Friday's game. That sure looked like the Giants were cruising to a 7-2 victory. Ah, but that's why we play all nine innings. And occasionally bring in some relief pitchers who just throw everything you know out the window. Such would be the role of Tony Watson, whose second pitch got yanked for a home run by Eduardo Escobar to make it 7-3. Two batters later, Wilmer Flores homer to make it 7-4. Two more singles result in Watson mercifully getting removed from the game, but Sam Coonrod isn't destined to fare much better. He needed just two pitches to give up a 3-run, game-tying, pinch-hit homer to Adam Jones, just the second such homer in the 8th or later in D'backs history. Tony Clark hit the other one off Juan Rincon of the Twins on June 7, 2005.

Not to worry, Kevin Pillar will finally end this mess with a 2-run homer in the top of the 10th. Pillar also had a 2-run shot back in the 4th, and is the first Giants batter to have a multi-homer game, where the second one was a go-ahead in extras, since Brandon Belt did it at Texas on August 1, 2015.

So here we are with a 9-7 Giants lead heading to the bottom of the 10th, and all that Will Smith has to do is get three ou-- oh no. Leadoff homer by Wilmer Flores to make it 9-8. Still okay. Shake it off, deep breath, until six pitches later, another homer by Nick Ahmed to re-tie the game at 9-9. By this point we've already recorded the first game in Chase Field history with 10 homers, and the third such game the majors in just two days. But still we need yet another run to break this tie and rescue us from any more madness.

Why thank you, Mike Yastrzemski. The first pitch of the 11th from Yoan Lopez gets launched into center for yet another extra-inning go-ahead homer; combined with Flores's an inning earlier, it's the first time in Giants history that they've hit two go-ahead homers in extra innings in the same game (usually one is all you need). That also happened to be Yaz's third dinger of the game; he became the first batter in Giants history with a 3-HR game out of the leadoff spot. Combined, Yaz and Pillar were the second teammates in Giants history to have multiple homers in a game, each including one in extra innings. Barry Bonds and Matt Williams did that on August 15, 1993, at Wrigley, when they went back-to-back for their second homers of the game in the 11th. Mike Yastrzemski also, already, tied his grandfather in the 3-homer-game category; Carl's only such performance was May 19, 1976, at Detroit.

By the time this slugfest is over, both teams have managed to hit 6 homers, with only four of them coming before the 7th. Only one other game in major-league history had seen both teams go deep six times: The White Sox beat the Tigers 17-9 at Comiskey Park on July 2, 2002. (Remember back at #20 we mentioned July 2, 2002, being the last time there were two 10-homer games on the same day? This was one of them.

And Will Smith probably couldn't help but get jiggy with it after the game; he gave up those two homers in the 10th to blow the save, but then ended up with a win when Yaz went deep in the 11th. He's the first pitcher in Giants history to give up multiple extra-inning homres and get a win; the last for any team was Joe Nathan of the Rangers on August 1, 2012.


Number 8: Late-Inning Magic

A medley of 8th-inning heroics from the week that didn't fit anyplace else.

Newly-acquired Tony Kemp connected for a 2-run triple in Pittsburgh on Friday. Even though those would be the Cubs' only 2 runs and they got walked off, it was still the first lead-flipping triple the Cubs had hit in the 8th or later of a road game since Hack Wilson did it at Ebbets Field on May 21, 1927.

Marwin Gonzalez hit a lead-flipping homer in the 8th at Miller Park on Tuesday. It was the second such homer the Twins had ever hit there; Corey Koskie took David Weathers deep on July 14, 2001, in their first visit to the park.

Kyle Seager of the Marinres broke a 3-3 tie with a solo homer. It was the 12th go-ahead homer of his Mariners career in the 8th or later, breaking a tie with Edgar Martinez for second-most in team history. Ken Griffey still holds the mark with 15.


Number 7: Cleveland Rocks

Back at number 16 we covered the Yankees' final series of 2019 against the Orioles. Alas, Yankee fans, you cannot play Baltimore 162 times a year. Every so often Cleveland must come to town, and on Thursday they gave the New Yorkers a little taste of their own medicine. In a game that reminded us of their famous 14-run inning back on April 18, 2009, Cleveland erupted for 7 runs in the 1st inning, including a grand slam by Jose Ramirez. The last 1st-inning slam by the Indians against the Yankees was way back on May 10, 1954, when Dave Philley took Bob Kuzawa deep after starter Whitey Ford had already been knocked out of the game.

On Thursday it would take one more batter to knock Yankees starter Chad Green out of the game, that being a solo homer by Jason Kipnis. Green became the first Yankees starter to give up 5 runs and 2 homers while getting only 1 out since Andy Hawkins did it at Fenway on September 1, 1990, exactly two months after his famous 4-unearned-runs no-hitter. That 1990 game was also the last time a Yankees reliever gave up 10 hits and 5 more runs, and wouldn't you know it, Chance Adams would enter the game in the 4th and turn a 9-1 score into 14-3. Greg Allen is now busy becoming the first Clevelander to collect 4 hits, 4 runs scored, and 4 RBIs in a road game since Manny Ramirez did it in Oakland on August 25, 1999. And then finally it is time for Mike Ford-- who started the game as the Designated Hitter for the pitcher-- to become the pitcher himself. Only nine other players have ever DH'd and pitched in the same game, and until that famous 18-inning Orioles/Red Sox game in 2012 where Chris Davis and Darnell McDonald got the decisions, it had only been done once, by Jose Canseco in 1993.

Ford, in true "take one for the team" fashion, gave up five more runs including a homer by Allen and the second of the game by Carlos Santana. The last Yankees position player to surrender 5 runs while pitching was infielder Gene Michael against the Angels on August 26, 1968. Santana would end the game with 3 extra-base hits, 3 RBI, and 4 runs scored-- something he also did on May 29 in Boston. The only other Clevelander to post that line twice in a season was Hal Trosky in 1936.

The original 7-run 1st inning was the Indians' first since starting 8-6-1 in Houston on April 20, 2013. And by the end of the contest they had piled up 7 homers, just the second visiting team ever to do that against the Yankees. The Red Sox also hit 7 in a 10-3 win on July 4, 2003. Not to be outdone, however, the Yankees did manage 3 homers of their own, making Thursday the first game in Yankee Stadium history where 10 homers were hit. (Remember back at the beginning when we said there'd be another 10-homer game?) And a participation ribbon to Gleyber Torres, who hit that final homer in the bottom of the 8th with the score 19-4. The last Yankees batter to hit such a futile homer (trailing by 15+ in 8th or later) was Hersh Martin, also against Cleveland, on July 13, 1945.


Number 6: Devers-ion

The Red Sox held a 6-1 lead in Cleveland on Tuesday as the game headed to the bottom of the 6th. Franmil Reyes, part of that big three-team deadline trade that sent Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati and Yasiel Puig to Cleveland, cut into that lead with a 2-run homer. Chris Sale-- who, we now know, was playing through pain and might be done for the year (and maybe 2020)-- gave up two more runs in the 7th, and the Indians eventually forced extras when Francisco Lindor hit the team's first game-tying (not go-ahead) double in the 9th inning or later against the Red Sox since Vic Wertz connected against Willard Nixon on July 14, 1957.

Ah, but extra innings only means more opportunities for Rafael Devers, who already had an RBI double in the 1st, a leadoff double in the 5th, and a 2-run double to max out that Boston lead in the 6th. Now granted, it wasn't another Devers double that gave the Red Sox the lead in the 10th; that was actually a solo homer by Jackie Bradley. But Devers did rope his fourth double of the game into center field two batters later, giving him the first 6-hit game by a Sawx batter since Nomar Garciaparra did it in Philadelphia on June 21, 2003. In the live-ball era, only two other Red Sox hitters had collected 4 doubles in a road game: Rick Miller (1981 in Toronto) and Orlando Cepeda (1973 in Kansas City). The other 6-hit games in Red Sox history, before Nomar, belong to Jerry Remy (1981), Pete Runnels (1960), and Jim Piersall (1953).

Although Devers "only" had 2 hits in Wednesday's game, one of those was a homer. He thus became the first player to have 6 hits in one game and then homer in his next appearance since Shawn Green did it on May 24, 2002, one night after his 4-HR game in Milwaukee. And no worries, he was back to normal by Sunday with 3 more extra-base hits and 3 RBI against the Orioles. The last Red Sox batter to have two 3-and-3 games within 6 days was Fred Lynn, who did it back-to-back on May 12 & 13, 1980.


Number 5: Mets Not Named David Wright

Eventually jersey number 5 will be retired for Mets legend David Wright, but until then, Amed Rosario and Pete Alonso are going to sneak in a reference in the form of Thursday's win in Atlanta.

Rosario doubled to start the game, and after Joe Panik also singled, Alonso would follow with a homer, the second time this season he's hit a 3-run homer as the Mets' third batter of a game. Obviously that's the earliest you can hit a 3-run homer, and by also doing it June 11 in the Bronx, Alonso became just the second player in Mets history to do it twice. Keith Hernandez also had two such games in the same season in 1987.

Rosario would triple in the 2nd, and double to lead off the 7th, eventually becoming the third leadoff batter in Mets history to collect 5 hits including 3 for extra bases. Brandon Nimmo did it exactly a year earlier in Baltimore, and Tommie Agee had the first such game in Mets history, in Pittsburgh on August 8, 1970. But Alonso wasn't done either; after that 3-run homer in the 1st, he tacked on a 2-run single in the 5th and another RBI knock in the 7th. That's 6 runs batted in, joining Jay Bruce (2017), Keith Hernandez (1988), Gary Carter (1986), and Darryl Strawberry (1985) as the only Mets with a 6-RBI game against the Braves. But when Alonso also singled to lead off the top of the 9th, it made him and Rosario the first teammates in Mets history to have 5 hits each in the same game. Alonso was just the second player in Mets history to have 5 hits and 6 RBI in a game, joining Yoenis Cespedes at Coors Field on August 21, 2015.

This is not to say the Braves didn't make this close. Josh Donaldson and Freddie Freeman each homered twice in a game that would still end up as a 10-8 loss. They were the first teammates in Braves history (1876) to homer twice each in a loss, and only one other pair had ever homered twice in the same game against the Mets. Eddie Mathews and Joe Adcock did it in an 11-5 win in the Mets' first season of existence, July 25, 1962. Homers by Matt Joyce and Ronald Acuña also made Thursday the second game in Braves history where they homered 6 times and lost. The other was June 8, 1961, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.


Number 4: It's Just Grand

Grand slams naturally lend themselves to the number 4 spot because they score 4 runs with one swing. On Friday James McCann propelled the White Sox to a 7-2 win in Anaheim, in the process becoming their first cleanup batter in over 3 years with 3 hits including a grand slam. Todd Frazier did that in Arlington on May 9, 2016. But McCann's homer was the first grand slam the White Sox had hit in Anaheim since Carlos Quentin on May 14, 2008.

Except that wasn't even the first slam McCann hit this week. He hit one in the 8th inning on Wednesday to break a 9-9 tie in the series finale with Houston. (And you were wondering why we didn't mention it up under number 8.) For the Sox it was their first go-ahead slam in the 8th or later of a home game since Jose Abreu hit a walkoff against the Rays on April 25, 2014. As for two slams in three days, well, there was that time in 1995 that Robin Ventura hit two in the same game. But in different games, the Sox hadn't had a player do it since Greg Luzinski against the Twins on June 8 & 9, 1984.

Also on Wednesday J.T. Realmuto became the first Phillies batter to hit a grand slam against the Cubs since Hector Luna did so at Wrigley on May 16, 2012.


Number 3: The Walkoff Slam

Wait just a minute, J.T. Realmuto. Turns out you might only hold that "most recent grand slam" mark for 24 hours or so. The Cubs led Thursday's game 5-1 heading to the bottom of the 9th, and Rowan Wick needed only to protect that 4-run lead. Jean Segura flied out to start the inning, but then David Bote booted a grounder that allowed Cesar Hernandez to reach. And then the wheels fell off. Scott Kingery single. Brad Miller singles past a diving Ian Happ to make it 5-2. With Pedro Strop on the hill, yet another ground ball gets deflected by Happ into center field, and now it's 5-3. Strop plunks Rhys Hoskins to re-load the bases, which of course means another pitching change. And Derek Holland's sixth pitch goes flying into the second deck off the bat of, who else, Bryce Harper. It was the first time the Phillies had scored 6+ runs in the bottom of the 9th to walk off since June 16, 1998, when Mike Lieberthal's 3-run homer capped a 7-run comeback against the Pirates. It was only the second walkoff slam at Citizens Bank Park, which opened in 2004; the other was by John Mayberry on June 4, 2013, off the Marlins' Edgar Olmos. The Phillies hadn't hit a walkoff slam when trailing since Ozzie Virgil took Gary Lavelle of the Giants deep on September 2, 1983.

But you're still wondering how this lands under number 3. Well, check out Harper's jersey number. (It's a 3.) And in the long and storied history between the Phillies and Cubs, which dates to 1883, the Phillies had only hit one other walkoff grand slam against the Cubs. That was August 6, 1991, when Les Lancaster gave up an 11th-inning bomb to Hall-of-Famer Dale Murphy-- who also, for his entire career, wore jersey number 3.


Number 2: Don't Just Sit There

Two is of course also very common in the dozens of boxscores that we scour each week. But it popped up with a few pitchers in places we don't normally expect it.

Homer Bailey, now of Oakland, gave up just 2 hits during his 7 innings on San Francisco's mound on Wednesday. Pretty good. He struck out 7 and got the win. But the other "2" next to his name was on offense. Bailey also had 2 singles at the plate, one of them driving in a run, as the A's cruised to victory. Oakland is, of course, an American League team, so their pitchers only ever bat when they visit an NL park. And that made Bailey just the second Oakland hurler since the dawn of the Designated Hitter in 1973 to have 2 hits and an RBI on offense. Tommy Milone did it in Milwaukee on June 3, 2013. And no A's pitcher had thrown 7+ scoreless innings, allowed 2 hits, and also recorded 2 hits, since Catfish Hunter in Anaheim on July 3, 1972.

Michael Lorenzen of the Reds has been an interesting case study for a while now. He'd win a game and also homer in it, he'd pinch-hit and mash a grand slam or two, he'd pinch-run and stay in the game to pitch. So now that he's in the bullpen seemingly full-time, the Reds can save a bench player by letting Lorenzen hit for himself if the spot comes up. On Saturday against the Cardinals it did. Twice. Lorenzen had 2 singles and scored the final run of Cincinnati's 6-1 win. No Reds reliever had posted a multi-hit game at the plate since Randy Keisler threw 6 innings against the Rays on June 7, 2005.

Steven Matz left his first impression as a #PitcherWhoRakes with 4 RBIs in his MLB debut a few years back. On Wednesday he had 2 hits and a run scored to become the first Mets pitcher to do that in Atlanta since Rick Reed on April 5, 2001. And we had a Dodgers pitcher hit a two-bagger in two games in a row this week. Caleb Ferguson and Clayton Kershaw both doubled at Marlins Park, the former in that 15-1 mess from Tuesday, doubling the number of Dodgers pitchers who have ever doubled in Miami-Dade County. The others to do it (at Joe Robbie, of course) were Ramon Martinez in 1995 and Tom Candiotti in 1994. The last pair of Dodgers pitchers to double in consecutive games were Josh Beckett and Hyun-Jin Ryu on July 1 & 2, 2014.


Number 1: Is The Loneliest Number

Before Saturday's game at Tropicana Field, the Twitter accounts of the Tigers and Rays traded some good-natured jabs about how the catwalks and dome ceiling looked like a giant eyeball watching over the players. Whether or not that freaked the teams out, well, we can't really say, but it was kinda fun when those teams couldn't score and could barely manage a base hit. A hit batter was the only baserunner before both teams got us off no-hitter watch in the 4th (thanks!). The Rays came closest to scoring in the 7th by getting pitcher-as-pinch-runner Brendan McKay to third, but no such luck. We then went four more innings without another runner on either side, and just when the Rays have the bases loaded in the 11th, Travis d'Arnaud grounds into an inning-ending double play to keep us knotted in a scoreless tie. All those zeroes are suddenly starting to look like eyeballs.

Finally, with two outs in the 13th, Eric Sogard hits a double and then rookie Michael Brosseau bloops a single to center for the walkoff. The Rays hadn't had a walkoff anything in the 13th or later since Desmond Jennings grounded into a fielder's choice-plus-error on May 24, 2014. The Tigers, taking their own futility to even higher heights, managed to bat 13 times, collect just 3 hits, and record twenty-four strikeouts. Only two other teams have struck out 24 times in a game of 13 innings or fewer, and not shockingly, two of them are this year. The Red Sox did it in Colorado on May 14; the other was two years ago, by the Dodgers on June 2, 2017 (and they won!).

The Rays' only other 1-0 win of 13 innings or longer was on Memorial Day last year when they beat Oakland as Mallex Smith singled home Johnny Field in the 13th. Bizarrely enough, the Tigers also lost a 13-inning, 1-0 game in Oakland last year; that was August 3 when Ramon Laureano singled in Nick Martini with the walkoff. And Saturday was just the second time in the live-ball era where Detroit batted 13+ times and had no more than 3 hits. The other was August 11, 1942, in Cleveland, in the first game of a doubleheader. That game was declared a 0-0 tie after 14 innings, even though Municipal Stadium had lights by then and the teams played the second game of the DH as scheduled. Turns out the American League rules of the time did not allow the lights to be turned on during a day game, no matter how long it went. So the first game was called by "darkness" and then the second game was played to a 3-2 Tigers win with the lights turned on. And you thought the Atlantic League had some strange ones.


Bottom Of The Bag

⚾ Mitch Moreland, Sunday: First Red Sox batter with 3 hits in a game he didn't start since Terry Shumpert against Oakland on June 9, 1995.

⚾ Kyle Seager, Tuesday: Second Mariners batter to have a 3-homer game in Detroit. Dan Wilson launched three out of Tiger Stadium on April 11, 1996.

⚾ Dallas Keuchel, Wednesday: First Braves pitcher to throw 3 wild pitches and hit a batter in a game they ended up winning since Hank Fischer against the Reds, September 12, 1964.

⚾ Jorge Polanco, Sunday: First Twins batter with a bases-loaded triple at current Rangers ballpark (in what was presumably their final game there). Only one at Arlington Stadium was by Roy Smalley on September 15, 1979.

⚾ Ian Kinsler, Monday: Second position player in Padres history to both homer and pitch in the same game (either order). Alexi Amarista did it in a 16-2 blowout by Oakland on June 17, 2015.

⚾ Nick Senzel, Saturday: Third leadoff homer this year. Jesse Winker also has three; together they are the first Reds teammates ever to have 3+ each in the same season.

⚾ Mallex Smith, Thursday: First player in Mariners history to have 3 hits, 2 stolen bases, and get hit by a pitch all in the same game.

⚾ Griffin Canning, Sunday: First Angels pitcher the entire season to allow 1 run and strike out at least 8. Every other MLB team had someone do it in April.

⚾ Elvis Andrus, Wednesday: Second batter in rangers history with 4 hits and 2 steals in a game but 0 runs scored. Kenny Lofton did it at Fenway on June 29, 2007.

⚾ Evan Marshall, Friday: First White Sox pitcher to face exactly 1 batter, and commit an error to allow that batter to reach, since Britt Burns at Texas, August 20, 1984.

⚾ Juan Lagares, Saturday: First batter in Mets history to hit a triple against the Royals. (Joe Panik then hit one Sunday.) Had been the only one of the 29 other franchises against whom the Mets had never tripled.

⚾ Jeff Hoffman, Tuesday: First starter in Rockies history to give up 4 homers and not at least start the 3rd inning.

⚾ Mike Freeman, Sunday: Second #9 batter in Cleveland history with 3 extra-base hits, 3 runs scored, and 3 RBI in a game. George Uhle did it at Tiger Stadium (before it was called that) on June 1, 1923.

⚾ Charlie Morton, Friday: Second pitcher in Rays history to give up 0 earned runs, strike out 10, and lose. Chris Archer did it in a 2-1 loss to Detroit on July 29, 2015.

⚾ Jose Iglesias, Monday: First Reds #8 or #9 batter with single, double, triple, and at least 1 run scored in a loss since Leo Durocher at Wrigley on September 28, 1930.

Teeing Off

It was a good week to take some swings.


The Links At Camden Yards

Of course, no team did more teeing off this week than the Yankees, especially when making their last visit of the season to their favorite course. Monday's 9-6 win in Baltimore was tempered a bit by Jonathan Villar hitting for the cycle, the first Orioles batter to do so in just shy of a decade (Felix Pie, August 14, 2009), and the first in franchise history to do it while battng leadoff. Villar was also the second player in their Baltimore tenure (1954) to hit for the cycle in a loss; Aubrey Huff pulled that off against the Angels on June 29, 2007.

Masahiro Tanaka ran into issues in the 6th when the Orioles scored 5 runs to tie the game, including the "homer" part of Villar's cycle. And so the Yankees needed a late home-run outburst of their own to eventually secure the win, and Paul Fry was more than happy to oblige. He served up a solo shot to Mike Ford and a 2-run tater to Mike Tauchman for the final margin. Fry was the first Orioles reliever to give up 2 homers, get no more than 2 outs, and take a loss, since Darren O'Day did it on May 15, 2016, against the Orioles. That Tauchman shot-- his second of the game-- made him the first Yankees 8- or 9-hitter with 3 hits, 3 runs scored, and 3 RBIs in a road game since Stephen Drew in Atlanta on August 30, 2015. And Brett Gardner also had 3 hits, 3 runs scored, and a homer; he and Tauchman are the first Yankees teammates ever to do that at Camden Yards.

Those 8th-inning homers also got Tanaka off the hook, making him the first Yankees pitcher to give up 8 extra-base hits in a game and not take a loss since Jim Abbott in Seattle on July 14, 1994.


Back Nine

In Tuesday's game the Yankees would once again score 9 runs, most of them early, on the way to a 9-4 victory in which they never lost the lead. A score of 9 doesn't readily announce that there were a whole other bunch of home runs in the game, but there they are again-- not just five, but six Yankees homers, all of them of the solo variety. That was just the second time in Yankees history they'd hit 6 solo shots in the same game; the other was a 7-2 win over the Red Sox on June 2, 1935. Being solos also meant that Tuesday was the first road game where the Yankees hit 6 homers but scored "only" 9 runs since July 20, 2005, at Texas.

Austin Romine only hit one home run, but he threw on a pair of doubles to score two of the Yankees' other three runs. He's the first Yankees catcher with a homer and two doubles since Jorge Posada did it in Oakland on May 10, 2003. And no 8- or 9-batter for the Yankees had 3 extra-base hits and 3 RBIs in a road game since Robinson Cano at Tropicana Field on September 15, 2005. Meanwhile, Mike Tauchman, who hit the first of the six homers, was the second number-9 batter in Yankees history with 2 extra-base hits, 2 RBIs, and a stolen base; Roberto Kelly did it at Minnesota on April 4, 1989.

You may recall the Yankees' dominance of another series at Camden Yards at the beginning of the season; they also hit 6 homers in a 15-3 win there on April 7. Combined with Tuesday's game, it's the first time in team history where they had multiple 6-homer games on the road against the same opponent in the same season. And one other thing you'll see from looking at Tuesday's taters-- they're all by different batters. The Yanks hadn't had six different players homer in any road game, solo or otherwise, since Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, and Bucky Dent were part of a group that did it at Comiskey Park on June 5, 1977.


12-Handicap

That 15-3 game back in April set a few high-water marks for the Yankees this year-- at least until Wednesday's finale at Camden Yards came close again. It took a few innings for them to get going this time, but Kyle Higashioka hung a 3-run shot in the 4th to knock John Means out of the game. Then Gio Urshela off Miguel Castro in the 5th. Both Yankees would homer again later in the game, off still different Orioles pitchers, and Cameron Maybin would add a 9th-inning solo shot. Count 'em, that's five more Yankees homers, and this time, instead of different players hitting them all, it was different pitchers allowing them all. Only twice before in franchise history had five Orioles pitchers allowed a homer in a game, and the previous such game was also at Camden Yards against the Yankees, a 19-1 loss on July 25, 2000.

In addition to their 2 homers, Urshela and Higashioka also finished with 4 RBIs each, the first Yankees teammates with that line in a game since... yep, that April 7 game again, when Gary Sanchez and Clint Frazier did it. It's the first season in Yankees history where they twice had teammates go for 2 HR & 4 RBI, regardless of whether it was against the same opponent or not. And Wednesday's 14-2 final, plus the earlier 15-3 game, marked the first time the Yankees had ever posted two 12-run wins in Baltimore in the same season. (Their last time doing it against the franchise was 1951 when it was in St Louis.)

The three combined outbursts from Monday through Wednesday made the Yankees the second team in MLB history to go deep five times in three consecutive games, and naturally the other is their nemesis the Red Sox, who actually did it against the Yankees in June 1977. Overall it was the fifth time this year that the Yankees have hit 5 homers in a game-- and all five games were at Camden Yards. They've never had six 5-HR games in a season, although it's worth pointing out that they don't go back to Baltimore.


Canadian Open

The Yankees did, however, head north to Toronto for the weekend, and at least Urshela didn't miss a beat. On Thursday he homered twice again, becoming the fourth Yankee ever with 2 dingers and 4 RBIs in back-to-back games. Alfonso Soriano did it in august 2013, preceded by Jason Giambi in 2005 and Tony Lazzeri in 1936 (Lazzeri's second game was the 11-RBI game where he became the first player ever to hit two slams). By tossing on a single, Urshela also became the fourth player on a list of Yankees to have 3 hits of any variety, 3 runs scored, and 4 RBIs in consecutive games; Soriano did that also, plus Robinson Cano in 2005 and Lou Gehrig in 1930.

Mike Tauchman also chipped in 4 RBIs as the Yankees rolled to their ninth straight win by a final of 12-6. Only two other pairs of Yankees had each had 4 RBIs in a game at SkyDome: Ruben Sierra and Tony Clark in 2004, and Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams in 1999. And the win lifted Domingo German's pitching record to an incredible 15-2 on the season; no Yankees pithcer has started a season with that mark since Roger Clemens won 20 out of 21 in the 2001 campaign (and then lost his last two, which didn't matter because they had already clinched).

Oddly, though, the biggest stat to come out of Thursday's game didn't come from the Yankees' side. Because Bo Bichette-- who, remember, has only been in the majors for two weeks-- homered in the 5th inning to become the fourth player in Jays history with an extra-base hit in nine straight games. Edwin Encarnacion (2015), Shawn Green (1999), and Jesse Barfield (1985) are the rest of that list. But an inning later, Bichette also laced a double in the gap and became the first player in major-league history with a two-bagger in nine straight games. Yadier Molina (2016) and Derrek Lee (2007) had beeen the only others with an eight-game streak.

The Yankees' win streak would finally come to an end on Friday when the Jays scored 8 runs despite having only 6 hits. It helps that all of the hits went for extra-bases, the first time in Toronto history they'd had 6 or more with no singles. And the last team to pull that off against the Yankees was the original Washington Senators against Red Ruffing on August 16, 1938 (had 4 doubles, a triple, and a homer, and still lost).


Hole-In-One

Quick, name an active pitching ace whom you are surprised has never thrown a no-hitter. We're willing to bet you said Madison Bumgarner, and if not, it's because you thought he had one. Nope. Four complete-game 1-hitters but never a zero. (Chris Sale, also an acceptable answer. Wait for it.)

Thursday night found Bumgarner back in his element, retiring 16 of the first 17 Phillies batters with only a walk to Rhys Hoskins breaking things up. And Bumgarner can sort of blame his own offense for denying him that no-hitter again. Because after 3 runs and a bunch of hard-hit balls against Aaron Nola, the 18th batter was not in fact the Phillies pitcher, but pinch-hitter Cesar Hernandez. Who deposited a clean single right over Bumgarner's head into center field. He got doubled off, such that the Phillies would strand only Hoskins and Scott Kingery who walked later, ultimately losing the game 5-0. Bumgarner ended up getting pulled after the 7th having thrown only 85 pitches, so you have to assume he'd have stayed out there if the NH had still been in play. But either way it was MadBum's sixth start allowing only 1 hit, regardless of the number of innings pitched. That's second in Giants history to Matt Cain who's done it an incredible 16 times (only two of which were 5 IP or less). The last time the Giants allowed 1 hit in a home game was July 10, 2016, also a MadBum start, also against the Phillies, when Jake Lamb broke up the no-hitter in the 8th inning.

As for that Giants offense, Bumgarner had a little part in that as well, singling and scoring in that 3-run 3rd against Nola, and then walking twice later in the game. The last Giants pitcher with a hit and 2 walks on offense was... Madison Bumgarner, against Milwaukee on June 14, 2016. Art Nehf, who did it four times between 1920 and 1924, is the last Giants pitcher with multiple such games. And Bumgarner became the first pitcher, for any team, in the live-ball era to have a hit and 2 walks on offense while allowing only 1 hit on defense.

The Phillies did ride Bryce Harper's 2 homers to a 9-6 win on Friday, but Saturday's game found them trying to match wits with Jeff Samardzija and, well, mostly failing again. Corey Dickerson did connect for a solo homer in the 1st inning to get us off no-hitter watch, which was good because Samardzija then sat down the next twenty Phillies batters in a row. And again, Cesar Hernandez breaks the lock with a single in the 8th-- but then promptly gets erased on an inning-ending double play. Will Smith allowed just as many baserunners in the 9th-- two-- as Samardzija had in the first 8 innings combined, marking the first time the Phillies had been held to 3 hits twice in the same road series since April 1998 in Cincinnati. The only other time they did it in San Francisco wasn't even at Candlestick. It was at Seals Stadium, where the Giants played their first two west-coast seasons, in May 1959. And Samardzija became the first Giants pitcher to throw 8 innings and allow only 2 baserunners since... well, remember those Madison Bumgarner 1-hitters? One of them was September 12, 2015, against the Padres, when Melvin Upton broke things up with an 8th-inning single.

And one more note on Cesar Hernandez from that 1-hitter on Thursday. He wrote his name alongside Clay Dalrymple in the obscure annals of Phillies history. Dalrymple's single in the top of the 8th inning stood between Juan Marichal and a no-hitter on July 19, 1960, in the first season at Candlestick Park. That's the last time-- against any opponent-- that the Phillies had 1 hit in a game and it was by a pinch-hitter.


Scramble

As for hitting in someone else's spot, Hernandez wasn't the only one to generate some pinch-hitting notes this week.

The Rockies trailed San Diego 5-3 after 6 innings on Saturday, thanks largely to Hunter Renfroe becoming the first player in Padres history to twice have a game with 3 extra-base hits and 4 runs scored (also did it June 14 at Coors). But after Chris Iannetta greeted reliever Craig Stammen with a leadoff double, pinch hitter Yonder Alonso gave us a 5-5 tie with his ninth homer of the season. That was the first game-tying (not go-ahead) pinch-hit homer for the Rockies in the 7th or later since Todd Helton hit one against the Dodgers on May 31, 2013. Unfortunately for Colorado, Manuel Margot would homer again in the 8th to take the lead back and ultimately win the game, with Wil Myers adding an insurance run with his own pinch-hit homer. That created the first game in Petco Park history where both teams had a pinch-hit homer in the 7th or later. It happened only once at Jack Murphy, when Mark Parent and the Braves' Mark Lemke each went deep on September 14, 1989.

On Friday there wasn't as much drama between the Padres and Rockies, with San Diego holding a 3-0 lead heading to the 8th. But being a National League game, the pitcher's spot still comes to bat, even in the late innings when you try and shift it around and make a mess of our scoresheets. So rather than let pitcher Trey Wingenter bat for himself with two outs and runners at the corners, the Padres send out Josh Naylor, and he promptly sends a ball into the seats in right field. Naylor didn't really create a bunch of notes by himself for that, but that's because our buddy Hunter Renfroe hit a pinch-hit walkoff grand slam against the Dodgers on May 5. The Padres have only one other season where they hit multiple 3- or 4-run pinch-hit homers in the 8th or later; Brian Johnson and Archi Cianfrocco both had pinch-hit slams during the strike-shortened 1995 campaign.

Turns out the Padres and Rockies weren't the only teams to match pinch-hit homers on Saturday either. The Braves and Marlins plodded through 7 scoreless innings with their regular players before Ozzie Albies decided to literally knock Sandy Alcantara out of the game with an infield double. The Marlins got two back in their half, including a solo homer from Curtis Granderson, but then Johan Camargo tossed on three insurance runs with a 2-out homer against Ryne Stanek, whose trade to the Marlins and demotion from being an "opener" we totally missed. Camargo's pinch-hit homer, combined with Granderson's the inning before, were the first pair of pinch-hitter homers to be hit by opposing teams in a game in Miami-Dade County (either stadium).

The Braves had more pinch-hit adventures in Minnesota to start the week, with Miguel Sano being sent up to bat for Ehire Adrianza with 2 outs in the 9th after Luis Arraez dumped a single into left field. Instead of just weakly striking out and sending us to extras, Sano cranked a pinch-hit walkoff homer, the first by a Twins batter since one former New Britain Rock Cat (Michael Cuddyer) did it to another (J.C. Romero) on April 19, 2006. Cuddyer had also owned the last walkoff anything for the Twins in an interleague, singling off the Mets' Mike Stanton on June 8, 2004.

And also on Monday, as part of Oakland's weeklong tour of Chicago's Red Line, Nick Martini became the first A's player ever to smack a pinch-hit homer at Wrigley Field. The game had been tied 2-2 after 6 innings, and Martini's homer could have given Oakland the lead... except that Ian Happ had taken it for the Cubs with his own pinch-hit homer an inning earlier. The last time any game at Wrigley saw a pinch-hit homer by both teams was July 3, 1991, by Chico Walker and the Pirates' Lloyd McClendon.



So it turns out there aren't really any pop songs about golf. (Google it, we did.) There are, however, a few classic movies about it. So watch out for that gopher, and don't nobody worry about us, because we're going all the way. Intermission!



Red Tees

If Oakland's busy exploring the Red Line in Chicago, then a reference to the Red "T" should involve Boston. It doesn't. They're later. This one is an eclectic mix of weirdness involving the Cincinnati Reds this week, and it still kinda works because that's where the Cubs headed after that series with the A's.

Before we get to that Cubs series, one note from the Reds' opener with the Angels on Monday. (The Angels, completing our metaphor, would end up in Boston for the weekend and potentially get to ride that red-line T after all.) After Taylor Cole did the predictable 1-inning "opener" thing, it was (drum roll) time for the MLB debut of one Patrick Sandoval, no relation to Pablo other than that we promise to mix them up at least once before the season ends. Patrick managed to strike out 8 Reds batters, partially predictable because they've never seen him before, but joining Rudy May (April 18, 1965) as the only Angels to fan 8+ in an MLB debut. However, the Reds had already tagged Cole for 5 runs, and won easily because Luis Castillo was busy striking out 13 on the other side. No Reds pitcher had done that since Raisel Iglesias in August 2015, and only one other had ever struck out 13+ while also giving up 2 homers. Aaron Harang did that against the Cubs on September 29, 2007.

Ah yes, back to the Cubs. Who took Thursday's series opener in Cincinnati handily by a 12-5 count, to the point where catcher Kyle Farmer ended up pitching in the 8th inning, after already having moved to second base as part of an elaborate double-switch the inning before. Only one other Reds player in the live-ball era got the thrill of both pitching and catching in the same game (never mind the second-base part), Dee Moore on September 27, 1936, in the final game of the season. While not really a stunt, the Reds were experimenting with making the rookie a pitcher after limited success in the minors, and had him start that game and throw 2 innings against the Pirates before moving him to the other side of the dish. (He never threw in the majors again.)

The big highlight of Thursday's game, at least around these parts, was that Nick Senzel received a catcher's interference award with the bases loaded to score one of those 5 Reds runs. (Yes, it does count as an RBI, if you've never pondered that before.) That hadn't happened for the Reds since Pete Rose got one against the Braves on September 19, 1985. And then Senzel comes up again to lead off the 8th inning. And yet again Jonathan Lucroy gets called for clipping his backswing and Senzel trots to first. We always have to point out that the league registers did not regularly report CIs until the early 1960s, so it's almost certain that some are lost to history. But in that population, Senzel is the first Reds batter ever to receive two in the same game. And the last time the Reds as a team received two awards... was also against the Cubs and happens to be the last time one of their catchers committed two in a game. J.C. Martin was the catcher in question, at Wrigley on May 8, 1970.

If you were worried that Trevor Bauer's strikeout had fallen out the back of the truck (or the drone!) during the trek down I-71, well, he put those fears to rest on Friday by striking out 11 Cubs in a 5-2 win. No Reds pitcher had fanned 11 Cubbies since Aaron Harang did it in the next-to-last game of the 2007 season-- a game that was meaningless after the Cubs clinched the division the night before, and in which they sat most of the regulars (and still won). On Friday, meanwhile, Aristides Aquino drove in the game-winner, albeit in the 2nd inning, with his fourth career homer. Aquino's only played in 9 games at this point. And the Reds haven't had a lot of right-out-of-the-gate phenoms. You're probably thinking of Jay Bruce, who did have a lot of extra-base hits but only 3 homers in his first 9 games. Josh Hamilton and Nick Senzel also hit 3. But no Reds batter has ever played his first 9 MLB games with the team and hit 4 homers.

We bring this up mainly because Aquino almost doubled that total on Saturday alone. In a game which Kyle Hendricks will be trying to forget for a while, the Reds routed the Cubs 10-1, with the "1" being an unnecessary solo homer by Kyle Schwarber in the 9th. Aquino, meanwhile, took Hendricks deep in both the 2nd and 3rd innings, the latter being the first of six straight hits allowed by the Cubs starter. Hendricks would join Felix Hernandez (August 15, 2015) as the only starters in the live-ball era to give up 12 hits and 3 homers without finishing the 3rd inning.

But Aquino had a present for Dillon Maples as well, connecting for the Reds' fifth homer of the game in just the 4th inning. All three of Aquino's homers were solo shots, the first Cincinnati batter to do that since Aaron Boone on May 8, 2003. And recalling that Derek Dietrich also had a 3-homer game at GABP back on May 28, this is the first season in Reds history where they've had multiple 3-homer games at home (in any stadium, not just GABP). The Reds also collected 5 doubles, the second home game since 1900 with 5 homers and 5 doubles. The other was at Crosley Field, also against the Cubs, on June 1, 1957.

And as for Aquino, who already made Reds history with 4 homers in 9 games, well now he's got 7 homers in 10 games. And the only other player in MLB history to do that at the beginning of a career is the one we first thought of when typing that "out of the gate" comment a few minutes ago-- Trevor Story for the Rockies in 2016.x


Sale In The Pro Shop

Earlier we told you Chris Sale was an acceptable guess as "surprising pitcher to have not yet thrown a no-hitter". We're guessing you could've fooled the Angels, who met the Sale buzzsaw in Thursday's series opener at Fenway Park. There wasn't any no-hitter drama after Shohei Ohtani hit a 1st-inning roller up the third-base line, where Rafael Devers knew his only chance was to hope it went foul, but it didn't. After that, however, Sale retired 16 Angels in a row on just 56 pitches before Mike Trout singled to start the 7th. And that would be the only other baserunner the Angels mustered as Sale struck out 13 and Brandon Workman went 1-2-3 in the 9th with two more whiffs. It was the first time the Angels had been shut out on 2 hits at Fenway since Jim Wright blanked them on June 13, 1978. The last time they struck out 15 times and failed to score, in any game, was also at Fenway on May 7, 1999, against Pedro Martinez. Sale, meanwhile, was the first Red Sox pitcher to strike out 13+ and allow only 2 baserunners since Hideo Nomo threw a 1-hitter against the Jays on May 25, 2001.

Friday wouldn't be a whole lot better for the Angels, not so much because of Boston's pitching, but because of its hitting. In one of those "committee" games, Brian Johnson gave up a double, a walk, and a 3-run homer to Albert Pujols in the 1st inning, but that would end up being two-thirds of the Angels offense. Their only other inning with more than three batters was the 7th when Justin Upton led off with an automatic double and later scored; all told the Angels would end up with 4 runs on only 3 hits. They hadn't been held to 3 hits in back-to-back games since July 18 and 19 of 2012 in Detroit, and Friday was the ninth time in team history where they managed the inverted linescore of 4+ runs on ≤ 3 hits.

Back home in the AL West, 4 runs is often enough to win a game, but not at Fenway when-- in between three-batter Angels innings-- J.D. Martinez is busy scoring 4 runs by himself. And Mitch Moreland homers and doubles. And Mookie Betts homers and doubles. And four Angels pitchers get shelled to the tune of sixteen runs, just the second time the Red Sox had ever defeated the Angels by 12 or more. The other was also a 16-4 game, in Anaheim on July 21, 1984, when Bruce Hurst defeated Tommy John. On Friday the Sawx would score those 16 runs on "only" 14 hits, and combined with the Angels' 4-on-3, it was only the second game in Fenway Park history (1912) where both teams had an inverted linescore. The other also involved the Angels; they beat Boston 16-9 (hit column 15-7) on April 30, 1966.

Martinez would finish Friday's game with 4 hits, 4 runs scored, and 4 RBIs, the first Sawx cleanup batter to do that since Jack Clark against Oakland on July 31, 1991. But as for any spot in the Boston lineup, Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts also collected 4, 4, and 4 in back-to-back games on July 25 and 26. It's the first time in Red Sox history that they've had three players post a 4-4-4 game in the same season. And it turns out Martinez also had a game with 4 extra-base hits, 4 runs, and 4 RBIs on September 4, 2017, while with Arizona. He's the 11th player ever to do it twice; fellow Bostonian Dustin Pedroia was the last before Martinez, and the others include Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Gil Hodges, Willie Mays, and Willie Stargell.


Albatross

Sometimes called a double-eagle, it usually occurs on a fairly-short par-5 where the tee shot is perfectly placed, and then the next shot takes a lucky bounce or two and winds up in the hole. That's 2 hits to achieve something that should take 5. The Dodgers had a couple of 2-hit experiences this week, starting on Monday in the opener of their series with the Cardinals.

That's when rookie Tony Gonsolin, in just his second major-league start, baffled the Cardinals hitters who had never seen him before. Kolten Wong finally hit that long drive in the 5th inning, depositing it against the center-field wall for a double to break up the no-hitter. Dexter Fowler added a single to right in the 6th, after which J.T. Chargois and Casey Sadler also shut the door for the final three innings. The Cardinals finished with 0 runs on just 2 hits, and the 8-0 final was their largest shutout loss at Chavez Ravine since Kevin Gross threw (really) a 9-hit shutout on July 12, 1992. The only other game this century where St Louis had only 2 hits at Dodger Stadium was against Clayton Kershaw on June 6, 2015. And Gonsolin became the first Dodgers pitcher to allow 0 runs, 3 baserunners (he walked Marcell Ozuna), and strike out 7 against the Cardinals since Ismael Valdez did it on September 17, 1995.

On Friday, however, the Dodgers would be looking in the mirror as Robbie Ray and the Diamondbacks came to town and the 2-hitter was on the other foot. This one was confined to the bottom of the 3rd when Corey Seager led off with a double, Tyler White walked, Walker Buehler bunted them over, A.J. Pollock hit a sac fly, and then Will Smith also doubled. As for the other eight innings in which the Dodgers batted? Those would be 24 up and 24 down against Ray and relievers T.J. McFarland, Kevin Ginkel, and Yoan Lopez. But still those 2 runs on 2 hits in the 3rd have the Dodgers in the lead. For now.

Kenley Jansen enters for the 9th because it's what he does. Nick Ahmed greets him with a leadoff single, but the big blow is Carson Kelly's 2-run game-tying homer. And so we play on. Continuing the theme, the Dodgers go 1-2-3 in the 10th as well before Kelly is up again to start the 11th. Wham, solo homer to give the D'backs a 3-2 lead and make him the second player in Arizona history to hit a game-tying homer in the 9th and then a go-ahead homer in extras. Paul Goldschmidt did it against the Orioles (at home, so the latter was a walkoff) on August 13, 2013.

Archie Bradley did throw one blip into the theme of the Dodgers going 1-2-3 in every inning except the 3rd by walking Joc Pederson to start the 11th. But then he also got three straight outs to create the second game in the live-ball era where the Dodgers batted 11 times and still only had 2 hits. Randy Jones and Rollie Fingers led the other game, a 1-0 Padres win on June 3, 1977.



You Know We Stop Counting At 10, Right?

The vast majority of golf courses are designed such that hole #18 ends where hole #1 begins, back at the clubhouse so you can enjoy some hearty beverages (if you weren't already). So we will end this post where it began, in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Remember how the Yankees couldn't stop blasting homers out of Camden Yards early in the week? Mm, yeah, maybe it's not them, it's you. Because that game happened on Saturday, the one where the Astros set a team record and MLB season high by crossing the plate twenty-three times against the hapless Orioles.

Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez started things by recording the first multi-homer 1st inning ever for the Astros at Camden Yards. But Aaron Brooks really hit a bump in the 2nd with two singles, a 3-run homer by Jose Altuve, and an RBI double from Bregman-- who to cap it all off, later scores on a balk. When Carlos Correa homers in the 3rd it's already 9-1 and Brooks has become the second starter in Orioles/Browns history to give up 9+ earned runs, 4+ homers, and not make it to the 4th inning. Bill Trotter did it at Tiger Stadium on August 14, 1937.

Branden Kline escaped the 4th with a double play, but the 5th, mmm, not so much. Three doubles brought about 5 more runs, and Kline then gave up back-to-back hits to start the 6th before being replaced. That replacement, Tayler Scott, got two outs in the 7th but then surrendered three straight singles and, oh yeah, a grand slam by Alvarez to make it 20-1. That was just the second slam the Astros had ever hit in Baltimore, the other being by Jason Castro on July 31, 2013.

If you've given up counting, that's already 5 homers for the Astros, who became the 14th team this season to reach that mark in a game at Camden Yards. The most shocking part is that all 14 are visiting teams. The Orioles' only 5-homer game was at Texas on June 4. We couldn't find any other stadium to see that many 5-homer games in a single season; the highest we came up with was 10 such games at Coors Field in 1999, two years before they added the humidor.

Pinch-hitter (really!) Rio Ruiz got his 15 seconds of fame with a homer in the bottom of the 7th to cut the lead to "only" 18. In the population of searchable play-by-play at the great Baseball Reference, he's the first pinch-hitter to homer with his team trailing by 19 or more. In fact, nobody had even done 16 until the Rockies' Raimel Tapia last month; he held the record for not even 4 weeks.

This game would of course not be complete without a position player pitching, so bring on Stevie Wilkerson. He's not eligible for a save this time, and that's probably a good thing since he gave up 4 hits including yet another homer by Yordan Alvarez. Only once before had four different Orioles "pitchers" allowed 4+ hits and 3+ earned runs without any of them getting more than 9 outs; Arthur Rhodes and Storm Davis led a 16-4 implosion against the Yankees on September 8, 1992.

As for Alvarez, his 3-HR, 7-RBI game was a first in Astros history, and combined with Yuli Gurriel's 8-RBI game on Wednesday (which we haven't even mentioned!), it's the first season in team history with multiple 7-RBI games. Saturday was the first game in Astros history where six different players had at least 3 hits, and the second where nine different players all had a hit, a run, and an RBI. The other in that category was an 18-4 win at Candlestick on July 7, 1971. And the last 23-2 exact score in the majors? That was the Twins over the Indians on June 4, 2002.

And if you can have a last laugh after a 23-2 beatdown, Ruiz would get another 15 seconds of fame-- plus 15 minutes of cleaning sticky sports drink off of himself-- in Sunday's series finale. The Orioles actually held a 5-4 lead after 8 innings before Michael Brantley's 2-run triple flipped the lead in the top of the 9th. Brantley himself ended up scoring on an error to make it 7-5 the other way and seemingly doom to the Orioles to another loss. But after Jace Peterson led off the bottom half with a double-- which, by the way, made him the first Baltimore hitter with a triple and 2 doubles in a home game since Miguel Tejada on July 9, 2005-- Ruiz would come to the plate trailing 7-6 and with Chance Sisco (hit by a pitch) on first. Ruiz fouled off a pair of 2-strike pitches before hitting one down the "fair"way-- onto the plaza in right for an 8-7 walkoff. That reduces to four (CIN, KC, NYY, SEA) the number of teams without a walkoff homer this season, and it was the Orioles' first time hitting one when down to their final strike since Chris Hoiles launched a grand slam on May 17, 1996, to beat the Mariners 13-10.



Bottom Of The Bag
(It works as a golf reference in addition to popcorn!)

⚾ Michael Conforto, Friday: With Amed Rosario on May 21, first time Mets have had two walkoff wins over the Nats/Expos in same season since 1988.

⚾ Jorge Soler, Tuesday: Second Royals batter ever to have a 2-HR, 4-RBI game at Fenway Park, joining Amos Otis on May 4, 1976.

⚾ Adam Frazier, Saturday: Second leadoff homer he's hit in St Louis (also May 10, also off Adam Wainwright). Only other player in Pirates history to hit two there was Tommy Leach in 1904.

⚾ Russell Martin, Wednesday: Second Dodgers walkoff in the pitch-count era (1988) when down to team's final strike. Other was a Milton Bradley single off the Giants' Armando Benitez on April 12, 2005.

⚾ Carlos Santana, Sunday: First Clevelander with an extra-inning grand slam in a road game since Andre Thornton at Milwaukee, July 29, 1982.

⚾ Ronald Acuña, Friday: Second Braves batter with a 2-HR, 4-RBI game at Marlins Park. Dan Uggla did it in the first game they played there, June 5, 2012.

⚾ Robert Dugger, Monday: Second starter in pitch-count era (1988) to give up a leadoff homer on the first pitch he threw in the majors. Kevin Rogers of the Giants served one to Geronimo Peña of the Cardinals on September 4, 1992.

⚾ Fernando Tatis, Wed-Thu: First Padres batter with a leadoff homer in back-to-back games since... Fernando Tatis, two weeks ago. First player in Padres history with two sets of back-to-back ones.

⚾ Will Smith, Sunday: First Giants reliever to have a multi-run single on offense since Jim Barr vs Padres, October 1, 1974.

⚾ Ozzie Albies, Tuesday: First Braves batter ever to hit a regular-season triple against the Twins (they did have several in the 1991 WS). Only remaining franchise against whom they'd never hit one.

⚾ Mike Montgomery, Saturday: First pitcher in Royals history to allow 0 runs, 0 walks, and strike out 12+ in an outing of any length.

⚾ Jordy Mercer, Thursday: With Brandon Dixon on May 5, first season where the Tigers have ever hit multiple extra-inning walkoff homers against the Royals.

⚾ Tigers, Mon-Wed: First time allowing 13+ hits in four straight games, all against the same opponent, since June 1935 against the Senators.

⚾ Justin Upton and Sam Travis, Saturday: First game since sac flies became official in 1954 where a player for each team had a homer, a sac fly, and a fielding error.

⚾ Jon Lester, Tuesday: First Cubs pitcher left in long enough to give up 11 runs since Joe Coleman at Atlanta, June 19, 1976.

⚾ Juan Soto, Monday: First Nats/Expos cleanup batter to reach 4x, steal a base, and yet not score a run, since Tim Wallach against the Phillies on August 11, 1990.

⚾ Whit Merrifield, Fri & Sun: First Royals batter with two leadoff homers in the same series since Alex Gordon did it in Baltimore 7 years ago on the exact same dates (August 9 & 11).

⚾ Jose Ramirez, Wednesday: Second time where he homered in both games of a doubleheader (also May 23, 2016, vs White Sox). Last Clevelander to do it twice was Albert Belle.

⚾ Adrian Houser, Saturday: First Brewers pitcher to strike out 10 Rangers and get a win since Cal Eldred at County Stadium, April 23, 1993.

⚾ Buddy Boshers, Tuesday: Second pitcher in Blue Jays history to commit a "bounce-off" (game-losing wild pitch) in extra innings. Other was Jerry Johnson at Minnesota (scoring Rod Carew) on May 13, 1977.

⚾ Sunday: First day where three road teams won games by a 1-0 score (NYY, TB, TEX) since July 27, 2013.